Already twenty years since the take-off of the European probe Mars Express ! Still in orbit and active, the small vehicle continues its measurements… And the ESA will test this June 2 a new “livestream”, with live images of the red planet, taking advantage of its small VMC camera. A unique celebration!
It will obviously be necessary to count on the 20 minute delay until the signal reaches us.
Mars Express still has juice!
” It is an old instrument, designed to take images of deployment, which is three hundred million kilometers from Earth. We’ve never tried this, and to be honest, we’re not 100% sure it’s going to work. says James Godfrey, probe operations manager at ESA’s Darmstadt control center. On June 2, the European Space Agency celebrates the 20th anniversary of the take-off of its first probe to the red planet, Mars Express. And try for the occasion a direct with the small camera VMC (Visual Monitoring Camera), capable of capturing an image every 50 seconds or so. The probe will send the photographs of Mars as quickly as possible to Earth, which will receive them about 20 minutes later to distribute them at the same time as several mission managers will follow one another. A function that was obviously not part of the initial capabilities of the probe, which the engineers have implemented in a new version of its software sent in recent days.
Not bad for a probe celebrating its 20th anniversary!
Yes, especially since the VMC camera was really not intended for that… On takeoff, it even had only one function, to take images of the separation of the small Anglo-European lander Beagle 2 at the time of its separation with Mars Express upon arrival near the red planet! Its mission completed, the VMC camera had even been put to sleep (the other instruments of the probe produced enough data to keep the teams busy) for almost 3 years. In 2007, it was reignited and took the name of “Mars Webcam”, used both to obtain global images of Mars (it notably identified recurring clouds) and for educational projects. Over time, even if the equipment has not changed, the teams have also learned to improve the images produced.
See you on December 25 for the 20th anniversary of the arrival
In addition to this one-hour “direct” which above all celebrates the longevity of the probe (only NASA’s Mars 2001 Odyssey mission does better), engineers and scientists are working to continue the measurements of the probe with the other instruments, in particular the HRSC high-resolution camera, its MARSIS radar which has already made it possible to detect underground lakes, its various spectrometers or quite simply its communications. Indeed, Mars Express relays, like its companions in orbit of the red planet, the signals collected from the rovers on the ground. ESA has another orbiter with ExoMars TGO, and is aiming for 2028 to send its long-awaited rover Rosalind Franklin to the surface.
Source : Isa
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