Rosalind Franklin Rover Archives

September 13, 2024September 13, 2024 by Evan Gough

How the ESA’s Rosalind Franklin Rover Will Drill for Samples on Mars

This screenshot from an animation shows the Rosalind Franklin rover's drill about to pierce the Martian surface. The rover can drill two meters deep and collect samples. Image Credit: ESA

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has delayed its launch, but the ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover is heading toward completion. It was originally scheduled to launch in 2018, but technical delays prevented it. Now, after dropping Russia from the project because of their invasion, the ESA says it won’t launch before 2028.

But when it does launch and then land on Mars, it will do something no other rover has done: drill down two meters into Mars and collect samples.

March 29, 2024March 29, 2024 by Evan Gough

The ESA’s Mars Rover Gets a New Map

European scientists have created an extremely detailed geological map of Oxia Planum, the landing site for the ESA's Rosalind Franklin rover. Not only will it help guide the rover's driving, it will help the rover sample the most promising sites. Image Credit: Fawdon et al. 2024.

Rosalind Franklin, the ESA’s Mars rover, is scheduled to launch no sooner than 2028. Its destination is Oxia Planum, a wide clay-bearing plain to the east of Chryse Planitia. Oxia Planum contains terrains that date back to Mars’ Noachian Period, when there may have been abundant surface water, a key factor in the rover’s mission.

May 26, 2023May 26, 2023 by Evan Gough

ESA Has a Playground for Mars Rovers to Learn how to Explore the Red Planet

A downward view of ESA’s rock-strewn recreation of the Red Planet, designed to put prototype planetary rovers through their paces. Image Credit: ESA-Remedia

NASA makes successful rover missions seem mundane. Spirit and Opportunity were wildly successful, and Curiosity and Perseverance would both be considered successes even if they stopped working today. But complex missions don’t succeed without rigorous testing.

The ESA takes that lesson to heart, and when it comes to their Mars rover, they’ve built a ‘rover playground’ to test it in.

April 3, 2022April 3, 2022 by Matt Williams

The ExoMars Rover is Ready, now it Just Needs a new Ride to Mars

An artist's illustration of the ExoMars/Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars. Image Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

When it arrives on Mars, the ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover will join a growing fleet of robotic rovers, landers, and orbiters dedicated to searching for life on Mars. As part of the Exomars program, this mission was a collaborative effort between the ESA and the Russian State Space Corporation (Roscosmos). Whereas the ESA would provide the rover, Roscosmos was to provide the launch services and the Kazachok lander that would deliver Rosalind Franklin to the surface.

After many years of development, testing, and some delays, the Rosalind Franklin rover passed its System Qualification and Flight Acceptance Review in March. The Review Board confirmed that the rover was ready to be shipped to the launch site at Baikonur Cosmodrome and would make the launch window opening on September 20th, 2022. Unfortunately, due to the suspension of cooperation with Roscosmos, the ESA’s rover finds itself stranded on Earth for the time being.

June 30, 2020June 30, 2020 by Evan Gough

Rovers Will be Starting to Make Their Own Decisions About Where to Search for Life

We all know how exploration by rover works. The rover is directed to a location and told to take a sample. Then it subjects that sample to analysis and sends home the results. It’s been remarkably effective.

But it’s expensive and time-consuming to send all this data home. Will this way of doing things still work? Or can it be automated?