Mars Express Launch

A launch event including a live launch feed from ESA will be hosted at the CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory - by invitation only.

A Ministerial BNSC/PPARC/ESA press conference,"The Countdown to Mars", arranged by BNSC, was held at the Royal Society, London, on Monday, May 19.

See BNSC Press Release: Lord Sainsbury hails UK role in Beagle 2 mission to Mars for details.

See other articles from the BBC website.

Mars Express is the first 'flexible' mission of ESA's long-term science exploration programme.

Mars Express comprises a number of essential components - the spacecraft and its instruments, the lander, a network of ground and data processing stations, and the launcher itself. These are supported by an experienced team of engineers in ESA and industry and hundreds of international scientists.

The mission's main objective is to search for sub-surface water from orbit and drop a lander on the Martian surface. Seven scientific instruments onboard the orbiting spacecraft will perform a series of remote sensing experiments designed to shed new light on the Martian atmosphere, the planet's structure and geology.

For more information the ESA Mars Express home page

The Beagle 2 lander will look for evidence of long-dead or still-living life on Mars by measuring the ratio of two different types of carbon in the rock. On Earth, biological processes favour the lighter isotope of carbon, carbon-12, over the heavier, carbon-13. A high carbon-12 to carbon-13 ratio has been found in rocks up to 4 billion years old and is taken as evidence that there was life on Earth so long ago. The hope is that the same occurred on Mars

RAL has been responsible for the thermal design and analysis of Beagle 2. The thermal tests, which took place in a huge vacuum tank at the CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), simulated the conditions Beagle 2 will encounter on the surface of Mars.

When Beagle 2 lands on Mars it will have to survive and operate at temperatures that drop to -100 degrees Centigrade at night and where dust in the atmosphere can block out the Sun for weeks at a time. In addition, cold winds will swirl around the lander, chilling and depositing sand over the sensitive instrumentation.

Professor Colin Pillinger, of the Open University and lead scientist for the project, was delighted with the results. "The tests all showed that, as far as we can predict, the Beagle 2 lander will cope with the vagaries of the Mars weather."

RAL has been responsible for the thermal design and analysis of Beagle 2 since the initial proposals, and I'm delighted to say that the model of the Beagle 2 lander has met the stringent specification, which should ensure its survival in the Martian environment", explained Dr Bryan Shaughnessy, the RAL engineer responsible for the thermal design of Beagle 2.

The 3m diameter Space Test Chamber at RAL had to be specially fitted out with special hardware to perform this challenging task. "This included a fan to generate a wind in the carbon dioxide-filled test chamber, a powerful lamp to simulate the Sun, and a thermally independently-controlled thermal plate to simulate the temperature of the surface of Mars", he added. Graham Toplis is responsible for the test chamber and he explains further.

"We have done all we can to simulate Martian conditions in the test chamber and we've put Beagle 2 through a series of tests, measuring all the responses very carefully. All the tests went according to plan and the specialised equipment we needed to set up specially for Beagle 2 functioned reliably and to specification. We're now looking forward with great interest to testing the model of the Beagle 2 probe, which transports the lander during its descent from Mars Express."

A number of tests were conducted so that the rate of heat transfer between the different elements of Beagle 2 could be accurately measured and compared with the predicted values used to support the detailed design. The mathematical models can now be updated with these experimentally determined values, and with further processing (specifically extrapolating the test results from a chamber on Earth to the actual surface of Mars) the operational thermal response of Beagle 2 can be predicted with much greater certainty.

More Information about Beagle 2 are available from the Open University Team.

The MEX POS is being developed by RAL in order to:

• Provide support for science operations planning. POS has developed a unique planning support tool called MIRA (MEX Instrument Resource Analyser) to help ESA and the PIs identify and resolve the complex constraints which arise when trying to plan science operations.
  
  
• Provide support for science operations commanding. The POS commanding system will provide the operational interface between the PIs and ESOC. POS will construct, in iteration with the PIs, the detailed command stream for science operations of the orbiter instruments.
  
  
• Execute the orbiter science operations during the nominal mission. POS is being developed from RAL's hugely successful Joint Science Operations Centre (JSOC) built under contract to ESA for the Cluster mission. JSOC has been supporting Cluster operations for more than two years with another 34 months of operations planned.

Contact: Anabelle Menochet

Last updated: 21st July 2003