Tag: European Space Agency (ESA)

For a safe Martian touchdown, the landing legs are crucial, of course. So when the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission takes place in 2030, these tests will hopefully prove their worth. There will also be parachutes and engines, note, to slow the spacecraft’s descent onto Mars.

The location for this Red Planet simulation is the ALTEC facilities in Turin. The company is offering technical support for the mission while Alenia Space is the industrial lead. Airbus is responsible for providing the landing platform.

ExoMars descent

The ESA writes:

“To land on the right foot on the Red Planet, European engineers have been dropping a skeleton of the four-legged ExoMars descent module at various speeds and heights on simulated martian surfaces.”

“This first series of tests involved dropping the model onto both hard and soft surfaces, the latter filled with powdery, Mars-like soil.  The team changed the speed and height of the falls by a few centimetres. ”

The lightweight, deployable legs are interconnected and equipped with shock absorbers to withstand the impact.

Apparently, another goal of the campaign was to verify the performance of the touchdown sensors. A system installed in all four legs detects when the spacecraft approaches the surface. An this then triggers the shutdown of the descent engines after a soft landing.

Testing in Turin

You can see the tests in the video below.

Credits: ESA/Thales Alenia Space/ALTEC

See also: Picture of the Day – GRASS asteroid gravimeter undergoes testing