A small rover designed by France and Germany will leave for a Mars moon in the middle of the decade. His nickname ? Dogmatix, like the name of the famous dog that accompanies Asterix and Obelix on their adventures.
What is small, has four “legs” and is white and black? If you devoured comics by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo in your youth, you may have immediately thought of the little dog Idéfix, the pet of Obélix, Asterix’s faithful friend. But this description could also fit perfectly with the Franco-German rover of the future MMX (Martian Moons Exploration) mission.
This relative proximity is now official, since the project managers have chosen this very familiar nickname to baptize the rover. decision was announced June 20, 2023 by the National Center for Space Studies (CNES), during the Paris Air Show. A name chosen in agreement with the Albert René editions, specifies the French space agency, and which reflects the objectives of the rover well when it will be deployed very far from Earth.
The name Idéfix, stylized IDEFIX, “ corresponds perfectly to the role of scout that the rover will have to fulfill vis-à-vis the mission. No doubt he will show enough flair and tenacity to meet all of his challenges. said CNES on Twitter. The rover is being developed in partnership with CNES’s German counterpart — DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt).
For anyone familiar with the history of the French space adventure, this is not the first time that CNES has drawn on the universe of Goscinny and Uderzo to give a name to a project. On November 26, 1965, at 3:47 p.m., a Diamant rocket rose from Hammaguir, Algeria. On board, the very first French satellite. Her name ? A Gallic hero: Asterix. All that remains is to find a project to give him the nickname Obelix, and the three protagonists will have been celebrated.
Dogmatix will travel to Phobos, a moon of Mars
The MMX mission is under the command of the Japanese space agency (JAXA), which will carry out the bulk of the mission – sending a space probe in the vicinity of Mars and its moons and carrying out a sample return. France and Germany are participating in MMX with the design of a rover which will aim to explore the surface of Phobos for one hundred days.
But, unlike the brave doggie in Asterix, IDEFIX will progress very slowly: ” due to the low gravity on this Martian moon, IDEFIX will only be able to move at a maximum speed of 1 mm per second “, recalls the CNES. Another notable difference is the weight. IDEFIX weighs 25 kg, which corresponds rather to the weight of a Golden Retriever for example – it is not at all the same size.
The MMX mission will leave in the middle of the 2020s. For IDEFIX, it will be a one-way trip: the spacecraft will remain on Phobos at the end of its mission.
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