Is Europe ready to leave for Mars : Monday, March 14 at 15:31 hours of Kazakhstan (the 10:31 in Italy), from the Baikonur Cosmodrome will start the mission ExoMars , a joint project of the European space Agency (ESA) and the Russian (Roscosmos). The purpose is to verify the existence of traces of past life and present on the Red Planet, as well as to test the technology that could be used for future missions.
The mission ExoMars is divided into two-step : the first, the one that is about to leave for the launch of a probe (TGO, Trace Gas Orbiter) will remain within the orbit of the Red Planet to investigate the presence of methane and other gases present in the atmosphere. Aboard the rocket Proton-M that will transport the TGO you also will find the lander Schiaparelli, which is named after Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli , which in the late nineteenth century identified geological structures known as “canals of Mars”.
the lander will reach surface (the chosen site is the Meridiani Planum, a plain situated near the equator of the planet) and will remain active for four “sol”, which is four Martian days (roughly terrestrial 4d2h34m). According to the roadmap drawn up by ESA and Roscosmos, the journey should take about seven months. October 16 is scheduled the separation between TGO and Schiaparelli: latter will rest on the soil of Mars three days later .
the second part of the mission provides the launch of a rover in 2018, whose landing site will be selected based on the data obtained from the TGO and Schiaparelli . This robot, which will reach Mars in January 2019, is designed to move independently and will be equipped with a drill that will allow it to pierce the soil of the Red Planet to a depth of two meters.
Of course, , when attention is focused on the imminent departure: Saturday 5 the TGO probe and lander Schiaparelli were loaded in the upper stage of the rocket Proton-M , which since yesterday is ready upright on the platform of Baikonur Cosmodrome. Engineers at Thales Alenia Space Italy an electrical test on the TGO also performed, replicating what will be the launch configuration.
The draft of a European mission to Mars has several years ago Party : the initial intention was to a partnership with NASA but in 2012, due to budget cuts, the US space agency withdrew from the ExoMars mission, preferring to focus resources on the development of the James Webb space telescope. This has, however, forced the ESA to completely reorganize the mission.
Roscosmos was already involved in the ExoMars in terms of participation from the technological point of view and the use of a Proton rocket as a “relief pitcher” for mission in 2018. After that NASA has a tight, in 2013 the Russian space agency and the European Union have signed a agree to include Roscosmos as a partner in all respects.
Among the set conditions, is to include two Russian instruments on TGO and that the scientific results of the mission are the intellectual property of ESA and the Russian Academy of sciences. In return, Moscow will provide Proton rockets for missions, as well as the input module in the atmosphere, descent and landing on Mars for the rover of 2018.
As always happens with ESA activities, also for the ExoMars mission is absolutely central Italy’s role . To celebrate the important part that our country will have the European exploration of Mars, to Piazza del Popolo in Rome was inaugurated an installation composed of a mega-screen of two meters by five and a simulation of the Martian soil where stands a reproduction of the lander Schiaparelli . The installation will remain standing for a month: Monday 14 you can also follow the live coverage of the launch.
“We are working on a dream, as it was a dream the first mission in which for the first time a man-made vehicle is resting on the surface of a comet, 67P “, said the president of the Italian Space, Roberto Battiston , which revealed how much the effects that are expected to be numerous and very real and “will be important in all areas of
technology.”
another reason for interest, also stressed by the Minister of Education, University and Research Stefania Giannini, is the fact that the team of scientists from the missioen include three Italian women , with the role of principal investigator of three of the instruments of the ExoMars mission.
Francesca Esposito INAF Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte will be responsible for DREAMS (Dust Characterization, Risk Assessment, and Environment Analyser on the Martian Surface), ie Mini weather-station installed on Schiaparelli . Maria Cristina De Sanctis Institute for Astrophysics and Space Planetology INAF Rome will instead be responsible for Ma_MISS (Mars Multispectral Imager for Subsurface Studies), a tool for the observation of the holes produced at the walls drilling rover that will start in 2018.
Finally, Francesca Ferri of the university of Studies and Activities for Space Center “Giuseppe Colombo” university of Padua will be responsible for AMELIA (Atmospheric Mars Entry and Landing Investigation and Analysis), a program that will use the data collected by Schiaparelli during his descent to Mars to determine the atmospheric conditions from higher elevations to the surface, so as to improve the models existing about the atmosphere of the Red Planet.
READ ALSO :
Bezos: “Tourists in space from 2018 with Blue Origin” [VIDEO]
Scott Kelly: “That’s what it feels like after a year in the”
No comments:
Post a Comment