THE last time Europeans tried to land on Mars it was a disaster: the European Space Agency鈥檚 Beagle 2 probe simply crashed on the Red Planet. So ESA is getting ready to redress this. On Monday it said it has learned lessons from Beagle 2 for its ExoMars mission, which will look for chemical signs of life on Mars.
After a two-year journey following its launch in 2011, the spacecraft will use parachutes, retrorockets and airbags to soft-land. Then it will release a rover to roam across the planet.
鈥淭he European Mars rover will be more autonomous than NASA鈥檚 robots鈥�
Advertisement
The rover will be more autonomous than NASA鈥檚 robots, Spirit and Opportunity. It will also carry a sophisticated chemistry set to experiment on rocks and look for signatures of life, such as amino acids.
An inquiry commissioned by ESA and the UK government concluded that the Beagle 2 project was hastily planned and treated as a minor add-on to the Mars Express mission. ESA鈥檚 Bruno Gardini says the mistakes will not be repeated. 鈥淭here is one fundamental difference: it is not an add-on,鈥� he says.
