Mars rover Magma White began participation in the international Mars 2013mission. On the Moroccan desert that imitates the Mars surface, the rover will search for signs of life and test the remote satellite communication capability.
Mars 2013mission was organized by the Austrian Space Forum. It is the first simulation of this magnitude, with (in addition to the Polish team) 20 research teams from around the world participating, including ESA employees and NASA team. The Polish team is composed of representatives of the ABM Space Education and members of the Mars Society Polska.
"The desert in southern Morocco is a great place to do research using rovers, because the local conditions are similar to those on the Red Planet" - says the European coordinator of The Mars Society, Łukasz Wilczyński. Research in this field on the Moroccan desert has been carried out for a long time.
Polish rover Magma White is an improved version of the rover Magma 2 built by students in Białystok. In 2011, it took first place in the University Rover Challenge in the United States.
The rover is equipped with L.I.F.E. detector, designed by Austrian-American team of biologists and engineers. "The machine will search for signs of life in the inhospitable conditions resembling the surface of Mars. It is the first utility test of the device, which in the future might be used in a real mission to the Red Planet" - reported Mars Society Polska.
Another tested piece of equipment will be space Austrian suit Auoda X, which allows to control the vehicle with voice commands and a special glove.
However, the primary objective of the mission is to engage the rover remote connectivity via satellite. Ultimately, the rover is controlled from Innsbruck, where the team travelled on 9 February. Magma White remains in the desert only under the supervision of the Austrian staff. The operation simulates a 10 minute delay in radio signal.
The Morocco expedition is not the first in which the Magma White team participates. In April and May 2012, in the Austrian Dachstein caves the rover helped in testing the French GPR Wisdom, which will fly to Mars in 2018 in the ExoMars mission.
Updates from the Moroccan mission of the Polish rover can be followed at: http://www.abmspace.com/index.php/News/Article20
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