'MARS EXPRESS', THE EUROPEAN VOYAGE TO MARS

Today, The Grandma has received the visit of one of her closest friends, Joseph de Ca'th Lon.

 

Joseph loves Astronomy and Science, and they have been talking about one of the most important European missions in space, Mars Express, the first planetary mission attempted by the ESA that was launched on a day like today in 2003.

Mars Express is a space exploration mission being conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA).

The Mars Express mission is exploring the planet Mars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency.

Express originally referred to the speed and efficiency with which the spacecraft was designed and built. However, Express also describes the spacecraft's relatively short interplanetary voyage, a result of being launched when the orbits of Earth and Mars brought them closer than they had been in about 60,000 years.

Mars Express consists of two parts, the Mars Express Orbiter and Beagle 2, a lander designed to perform exobiology and geochemistry research. Although the lander failed to fully deploy after it landed on the Martian surface, the orbiter has been successfully performing scientific measurements since early 2004, namely, high-resolution imaging and mineralogical mapping of the surface, radar sounding of the subsurface structure down to the permafrost, precise determination of the atmospheric circulation and composition, and study of the interaction of the atmosphere with the interplanetary medium.

Due to the valuable science return and the highly flexible mission profile, Mars Express has been granted several mission extensions. The latest was approved on 1 October 2020 and runs until 31 December 2022.

Some instruments on the orbiter, including the camera systems and some spectrometers, reuse designs from the failed launch of the Russian Mars 96 mission in 1996 European countries had provided much of the instrumentation and financing for that unsuccessful mission.

More information: ESA

The design of Mars Express is based on ESA's Rosetta mission, on which a considerable sum was spent on development. The same design was also used for ESA's Venus Express mission in order to increase reliability and reduce development cost and time. Because of these redesigns and repurposing, the total cost of the project was about $345 million- less than half of comparable U.S. missions.

Arriving at Mars in 2003, 17 years, 5 months and 11 days ago and counting, it is the second longest surviving, continually active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth, behind only NASA's still active 2001 Mars Odyssey.

Mars Express mission is dedicated to the orbital and originally in-situ study of the interior, subsurface, surface and atmosphere, and environment of the planet Mars.

The scientific objectives of the Mars Express mission represent an attempt to fulfil in part the lost scientific goals of the Russian Mars 96 mission, complemented by exobiology research with Beagle-2. Mars exploration is crucial for a better understanding of the Earth from the perspective of comparative planetology.

The spacecraft originally carried seven scientific instruments, a small lander, a lander relay and a Visual Monitoring Camera, all designed to contribute to solving the mystery of Mars' missing water. All the instruments take measurements of the surface, atmosphere and interplanetary media, from the main spacecraft in polar orbit, which will allow it to gradually cover the whole planet.

The total initial Mars Express budget excluding the lander was €150 million. The prime contractor for the construction of Mars Express orbiter was EADS Astrium Satellites.

The spacecraft was launched on June 2, 2003 at 23:45 local time (17:45 UT, 1:45 p.m. EDT) from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, using a Soyuz-FG/Fregat rocket.

The Mars Express and Fregat booster were initially put into a 200 km Earth parking orbit, then the Fregat was fired again at 19:14 UT to put the spacecraft into a Mars transfer orbit. The Fregat and Mars Express separated at approximately 19:17 UT. The solar panels were then deployed, and a trajectory correction manoeuvre was performed on June 4 to aim Mars Express towards Mars and allow the Fregat booster to coast into interplanetary space. The Mars Express was the first Russian-launched probe to successfully make it out of low Earth orbit since the Soviet Union fell.

Since orbit insertion, Mars Express has been progressively fulfilling its original scientific goals. Nominally the spacecraft points to Mars while acquiring science and then slews to Earth-pointing to downlink the data, although some instruments like Marsis or Radio Science might be operated while the spacecraft is Earth-pointing.

More information: ESA

 I would like to die on Mars.
Just not on impact.

Elon Musk