Astromobile with Spanish technology will search for life on Mars

The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to launch, next September, the Exomars mission, which is made up of a surface platform and a rover, called the Rosalind Franklin, in order to search for signs of present or past life in the subsurface of Mars.

The rover, which will be the first European to travel around the red planet, will have innovative Spanish technology “not even NASA and that will travel on the next rover to search for life on Mars.”

The Thales Alenia Space company, which is located in Tres Cantos, Madrid, developed the electronics that will control all the moving parts of the rover, such as the wheels, the solar panels and the camera that will be placed on the outside of the rover, becoming in a real challenge for electronics because they must withstand high and low temperatures.

The first technology in the world

The technological design carried out by the company Thales has become an innovative challenge as it is the first time that the moving parts, called actuator control units (ADE), are located on the outside of the rover. The company’s project manager, José Arnedo, stated: “We are the only ones in the world that have faced the challenge of designing and manufacturing this technology. Today, not even NASA has it.”

According to Arnedo, the electronic modules created by Thales work with a wide range of temperatures that range from 113º C below zero to 85º C. “For seven years we have tested more than a hundred different configurations, assemblies and components.”

He also stressed that the entire system is suitable to withstand high radiation and strong vibrations that will occur at times, such as the launch or deployment of solar panels. The technicians have executed different tests, simulating errors in each of the system components. “Our design is prepared to avoid that if there is a fault, it spreads and damages another area of ​​the circuit,” the head of the project pointed out.

M. Rodríguez

Source: abc.es