ExoMars Rover completes environmental tests
Image: The Rosalind Franklin rover of the joint ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars mission completed a series of environmental tests at the end of 2019 at Airbus, Toulouse, France. This included final thermal and vacuum tests where the Rover is heated and cooled to simulate the temperatures of its journey through space and on the surface of Mars. For example, Rosalind Franklin can expect temperatures dropping to –120°C outside, and –50 °C inside the rover once on Mars. It must also be able to operate in less than one hundredth of Earth’s atmospheric pressure – and in a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere.Last year the ‘structural and thermal model’ of the rover successfully completed a rigorous environmental test campaign; the latest round of tests subjected the real flight-model to the simulated space environment.Now the focus moves to final checks on the rover systems. This includes checking the alignment of instruments working together, such as the imaging...