Airbus SE has won a $194 million contract to develop a landing platform that will deliver a British-built rover to Mars for a mission to search for signs of life, UNN reports, citing Bloomberg.
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The European Space Agency has awarded Airbus UK a contract to build a landing module for the ExoMars mission, scheduled to launch in 2028, in collaboration with NASA, the country's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said on Saturday. The Airbus-built rover is scheduled to land on Mars later this decade.
This is a first-of-its-kind contract for Europe, and it comes at a time when the region is trying to reduce its dependence on the United States, especially in the defense and space sectors. The last rover mission was in 2021, when the US landed its Perseverance on the Red Planet to collect rocks and other materials for study on Earth.
The rover, named after British scientist Rosalind Franklin, was ready for launch in 2022, but ESA ended its space cooperation with Russia after the start of the war in Ukraine. This meant that Europe had to replace missing Russian equipment for the mission, including the Martian landing module, UK Technology Minister Peter Kyle said in a statement.
Landing on Mars is complicated by the sand dunes, rocks and boulders scattered across the planet. For this reason, the landing platform will have two ramps built in on opposite sides so the rover can descend to the smoothest surface, according to the statement.
Once on Mars, the Rosalind Franklin rover will be able to drill two meters below the surface to collect samples, as well as record data about the atmosphere and surface texture.
"The mission will boost our space knowledge in the UK and improve our collective understanding of our solar system," Cata Escott, managing director of Airbus Defence and Space UK, said in a statement.
According to DSIT, the contract will be funded by the UK government through its space agency and will create around 200 jobs in the country's space sector.
