An exploratory mission to Mars isn't a time for a mistake.
To avoid blunders, the European Space Agency recently tested a half-scale of its ExoMars rover in what they call the "Mars Yard," an artificial landscape replicating Mars' surface, at France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES).
The testing had ESA researchers 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away in the Netherlands, remote-controlling the rover off a mock-up lander to simulate whatever problems it might encounter on the actual mission, which is just over two years away in 2018.
ESA predicts the egress of the ExoMars 2018 rover off its lander "will be the second most stressful moment of the mission after Mars landing."
With each test scenario, ESA researchers didn't know where in the Mars Yard the rover was, as they were only able to use accessible information from cameras and sensors in the rover and lander to resolve any issues. With two sets of ramps to the surface of the planet, the researching team had to decide which route was more secure, as the time-lapse video shows.
In each of the five egress tests performed, the rover took just north of two minutes off the lander and four practice attempts ended in success and one in failure. The one failure came when the ExoMars rover half-scale egressed at too steep of an angle and toppled, according to the ESA. Such an error during the actual mission would end the trek right there.
What's interesting about the ESA releasing this time-lapse clip of its rover right now is it comes just as NASA is set to make an announcement Thursday afternoon about the findings of its own Mars exploration.
