Mars Express - ESA Sets Ambitious Goals For First European Mission To Mars

[Ron Baalke]

Paris, 19 May 2003
Information Note
N° 11-2003

Mars Express - ESA sets ambitious goals for the first European mission to
Mars

On 2 June 2003, the first European mission to Mars will be launched. It
will also be the first European mission to any planet. Mars Express has
been designed to perform the most thorough exploration ever of the Red
Planet. It has the ambitious aim of not only searching for water, but also
understanding the "behaviour" of the planet as a whole. But maybe the most
ambitious aim of all - Mars Express is the only mission in more than 25
years that dares to search for life.

Mars has always fascinated human beings. No other planet has been visited
so many times by spacecraft. And still, it has not been easy to unveil its
secrets. Martian mysteries seem to have increased in quantity and
complexity with every mission. When the first spacecraft were sent - the
Mariner series in 1960s - the public was expecting an Earth "twin", a
green, inhabited planet full of oceans. Mariner shattered this dream by
showing a barren surface. This was followed by the Viking probes which
searched for life unsuccessfully in 1976. Mars appeared dry, cold and
uninhabited: the Earth’s opposite.

Now, two decades later, modern spacecraft have changed that view, but they
have also returned more questions. Current data show that Mars was
probably much warmer in the past. Scientists now think that Mars had
oceans, so it could have been a suitable place for life in the past.

"We do not know what happened to the planet in the past. Which process
turned Mars into the dry, cold world we see today?" says Agustin Chicarro,
ESA's Mars Express project scientist. "With Mars Express, we will find
out. Above all, we aim to obtain a complete global view of the planet -
its history, its geology, how it has evolved. Real planetology!"

Mars Express will reach the Red Planet by the end of December 2003, after
a trip of just over six months. Six days before injection into its final
orbit, Mars Express will eject the lander, Beagle 2, named after the ship
on which Charles Darwin found inspiration to formulate his theory of
evolution. The Mars Express orbiter will observe the planet and its
atmosphere from a near-polar orbit, and will remain in operation for at
least a whole Martian year (687 Earth days). Beagle 2 will land in an
equatorial region that was probably flooded in the past, and where traces
of life may have been preserved.

The Mars Express orbiter carries seven advanced experiments, in addition
to the Beagle 2 lander. The orbiter's instruments have been built by group
of scientific institutes from all over Europe, plus Russia, the United
States, Japan and China. These instruments are a subsurface sounding
radar; a high-resolution camera, several surface and atmospheric
spectrometers, a plasma analyzer and a radio science experiment.

The high-resolution camera will image the entire planet in full colour, in
3D, at a resolution of up to 2 metres in selected areas. One of the
spectrometers will map the mineral composition of the surface with great
accuracy.

The missing water
Data from some of the instruments will be key to finding out what happened
with the water which was apparently so abundant in the past. For instance,
the radar altimeter will search for subsurface water and ice, down to a
depth of a few kilometres. Scientists expect to find a layer of ice or
permafrost, and to measure its thickness.

Other observations with the spectrometers will determine the amount of
water remaining in the atmosphere. They will also tell whether there is a
still a full "water cycle" on Mars, for example how water is deposited in
the poles and how it evaporates, depending on the seasons.

"These data will determine how much water there is left. We have clear
evidence for the presence of water in the past, we have seen dry river
beds and sedimentary layers, and there is also evidence for water on
present-day Mars. But we do not know how much water there is. Mars Express
will tell us," says Chicarro.

The search for life

The instruments on board Beagle 2 will investigate the geology and the
climate of the landing site. But, above all, it will look for signs of
life.

Contrary to the Viking missions, Mars Express will search for evidence for
both present and past life. Scientists are now more aware that a few
biological experiments are not enough to search for life - they will
combine many different types of tests to help discard contradictory
results.

To "sniff" out direct evidence of past or present biological activity,
Beagle 2's "nose" is a gas analysis package. This will determine whether
carbonate minerals, if they exist on Mars, have been involved in
biological processes. Beagle’s nose will also detect gases such as
methane, which scientists believe can only be produced by living
organisms.

Beagle 2 will also be able to collect samples from below the surface,
whether under large boulders or within the interiors of rocks - places
that the life-killing ultraviolet radiation from the Sun cannot reach.
These samples will be collected with a probe called the "mole", which is
able to crawl short distances across the surface, at about 1 centimetre
every six seconds, and to dig down to 2 metres deep.

Mars Express will add substantial information to the international effort
to explore Mars. "Mars Express is crucial for providing the framework
within which all further Mars observations will be understood," says
Chicarro.

The Mars Express spacecraft is now in Bajkonour, Kazakhstan, being
prepared for its launch in early June 2003.

For further information please contact:

ESA – Communication Department
Media Relations Office
Tel: +33(0)1.53.69.7155
Fax: +33(0)1.53.69.7690

Rudolf Schmidt, ESA – Mars Express Project Manager
ESA/ESTEC – Noordwijk, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 71 565 3603
Email: Rudolf....@esa.int

Agustin Chicarro, ESA – Mars Express Project Scientist
ESA/ESTEC – Noordwijk, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 71 565 3613
Email: Agustin....@esa.int

For more information about the Mars Express mission and launch campaign
visit: http://www.esa.int/marsexpresslaunch

Live images of the Mars Express spacecraf are available at:
http://sci2.esa.int/spacecam/marsexpress.htm

For more information about the ESA Science Programme, visit:
http://sci.esa.int

For more information about the ESA visit:
http://www.esa.int