[X] My Assistant

[Guest_spaceffm_*]

Double Mission to Mars ( 2009 )

Rover Mass: 200kg ( 40 kg carry on load )
Orbiter: works like Mars Express and serves as a relaisstation for the Rover.

The name EXO-MARS comes from Exobiology, which will be one of the main Goals of the mission. To find extraterrestrial Life.
The Rover namend Pasteur equipped with a sophisticated suite of instruments to search systematically for the existence – past or present - of micro-biological processes will drive several km on the surface and drill up to 1,5m down the soil to analyze it.
This mobile laboratory is an essential precursor to a later Aurora Mars Sample Return Mission.

Mission Status: Study Phase nearing completion.

Picture of the Rover:





Picture of the Orbiter:



This mission will be the first mission in ESA's ambitious Aurora Program.


I was wondering why ther was no thread or section about this new mission of ESA...

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Intersting news on ExoMars -- although I remain skeptical: France's plans for Netlander were a lot farther advanced before they utterly collapsed. Also, this sounds like an awfully ambitious mission for such a small rover; MSL is a lot bigger, but may not travel any farther per year and doesn't have any drill at all.

As for the news on the US program: I can confirm the switchover to "follow the carbon", starting with MSL -- that's its main rationale -- but it is very far from certain that a follow-up more advanced Astrobiology Field Lab will then be flown. NASA may well decide simply to use one or more MSLs as scouts to look for signs of an interesting amount of trace organics, and then cut directly to the chase by dispatching a sample-return mission to the most promising of those locales.

[climber]

As for the news on the US program: I can confirm the switchover to "follow the carbon", starting with MSL -- that's its main rationale --

So we're going clearly one step further both in "life" detection but also, for the moment in site selection. I bet that this will start soon to be an important topic of discussion here at UMSF since scientists in charge are supposed to meet next month, IIRC. Looking for evidence of water from orbit is more evident (hum, Gusev...) than traces of carbon. I'm thinking of the clay's maps because clay could have kept whaterver was there when it deposited but that's about it. How can we suspect carbon presence from orbit ?

[Bob Shaw]

How can we suspect carbon presence from orbit ?

Methane.

Bob Shaw

[climber]

[quote name='Bob Shaw' date='May 18 2006, 01:16 PM' post='54685']
Methane.
Bob Shaw

Stupid me!