Without Russia, but with NASA. Europe will send a unique rover to Mars: what is the feature (photo)

8 years after the designated date, NASA will help send the product of ECA and Roscosmos to the red planet. Today, Rosalind Franklin rover has been active in Mars's research for 4 years. But first, the launch of the Marsokhod was prevented by the Covid-19 pandemic and then Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Now it became known that the rover created by the European Space Agency (ECA) will still go to the Red Planet with NASA to do what other such devices cannot, writes Forbes. In focus.

Technology has appeared its Telegram channel. Subscribe not to miss the latest and most intrusive news from the world of science! Rosalind Franklin rover had to go to Mars within the Roscomos' joint mission and ECA called Exomars in the summer of 2020. But the coronavirus pandemic began and the flight was postponed to September 2022. The fact is that the starting window for the red planet opens every 26 months when Mars is closest to the ground.

But after Russia launched a full -scale war in Ukraine, Eka abolished this mission in March 2022. Russia had to provide a rocket launcher to launch a rover, as well as a fever platform for landing on Mars. Now it became known that all this will be provided by the US Space Agency, and under the new agreement between NASA and ECA, the launch of the rosalind Franklin rosaline Franklin will be launched in 2028. The main task of the rover is to search for signs of ancient life on the red planet.

Its key feature is a storm that can reach a depth of 2 meters. In this way, a six -wheeled robotic machine will be able to make the deepest hole in the surface of Mars, which the rockers that are there cannot do. Scientists plan to collect at such depth samples of water ice, which have not undergone strong cosmic and solar radiation, as well as the negative effects of extreme temperatures on the surface of Mars.

In addition to the fact that the rover will be able to reach great depth below the surface of the red planet, it will also be equipped with a unique onboard laboratory for the study of the samples obtained. In this way, scientists hope to identify the evidence of the existence of ancient life on Mars. Another key feature of the rover is the presence of a device for analyzing organic molecules. With this analyzer, the device will look for building blocks of life in soil samples on Mars.

NASA has promised ECA to provide key components for this device, which is designed to identify geochemical signs of life in rock samples. The rover will land in the Mars region called Oxia Planum to find signs of ancient life in rich soil. Although the exact start date is unknown, the closest distance between Mars and the Earth will be in March 2028, which makes this month perfect for launching the rosalind Franklin.

The apparatus was named after the British scientist Rosalind Franklin, which made a significant contribution to the discovery of the DNA structure. As the focus has already wrote, the new nuclear engine will help you get to Mars as soon as possible and even further than Voyager-1. NASA believes that the engine developed will open a new era in the development of space.