The Mars Yard was the testing ground for a new martian buggy, a prototype of a planned rover, due for launch to the red planet in 2018.
After arriving on Mars, a future rover, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), will drill into the surface of the planet. Crust samples will be tested by the craft for signs of life. This vehicle will be able to travel across the martian surface, at distances up to 230 feet a day.
The automated laboratory currently being tested has been nicknamed Bryan by the crew that developed it. One earlier prototype was dubbed Bruno while another, clad in gold, became known as Bridget.
The Mars Yard testing facility resembles a giant sand box, nearly 100 by 42 feet in area. Like Mars, the 330 tons of sand is red, and contains rocks, boulders and other debris. The walls and ceiling in the building are painted a tawny red, in order to best simulate conditions on Mars. The interplanetary testing ground is located in Stevenage, in the borough of Hertfordshire in England.
"A facility like this enables us to develop sophisticated navigation systems to 'teach' Mars rovers how to drive autonomously across the Red Planet. This will be a fantastic resource for the ExoMars rover team and for future missions to come," Alvaro Giménez, ESA's Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, said.
The ExoMars program, managed by the European Space Agency, aims to bring samples of the martian crust back to the Earth by the 2020's. To meet that goal, the agency intends to launch an orbiter and demonstrator landing module to the red planet in 2016. This would be followed two years later when the Mars rover will take off, bound for its final destination. Mission managers at the European Space Agency believe the ExoSpace program will be able to identify life on Mars, if it can be found.
Communications between the ExoMars rover and Earth will be limited, so many actions aboard the craft are automated. Mission managers select targets from images returned by cameras attached to the mast of the rover. From there, the craft must direct its own path for long periods of time.
"To achieve this, it creates digital maps from navigation stereo cameras and computes a suitable trajectory. Close-up collision avoidance cameras are used to ensure safety," ESA officials wrote on their Web site.
The location selected for landing is expected to have once contained water. After the rover lands in 2019, the Mars Yard testing facility will remain open, for use by future missions.
ExoMars is an organization composed of members of the European Space Agency and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos.
