Aurora - Europe's journey to Mars

A collection of ten videos describing Aurora's mission to Mars. The topics covered in the films include:

  • Why we explore: the film explains the reasons behind scientists' search for the evidence of signs of past life on Mars
  • Astrobiology: the video explains how scientists look at life that exists in extreme environments on Earth, to see what kind of life we might see on the surface of Mars.

  • Atacama Desert: the film describes a research trip to find extremophiles that might give scientists some clues as to the kind of life that may exist on the surface of Mars.  

  • Instrument field trials: explains how the ExoMars instruments, the Pancam and Raman spectroscopy instruments can both help scientists identify areas of interest on the surface of Mars.

  • PanCam engineeringshows how precision machines are used to produce the PanCam instrument, which will be sent to the European Space Agency to be integrated on to the ExoMars rover.

  • Autonomous navigation: explains how the Mars rover technologies must be partly autonomous, since the signals from Earth to Mars take too long for every command to be send from Earth.

  • Mars Yard: looks at how the ‘Mars Yard’, at Airbus Defence and Space, Stevenage, allows engineers to test out the capabilities of the ExoMars rover.  

  • Landing Sites: talks about how challenging it is to find a scientifically compelling site for the ExoMars rover to land in.

  • Raman spectroscopy: looks at the spectrometer which shows the organic compounds that were found on the quartz, as well as the composition of the quartz itself.

  • Collaborative science: explains how scientists from many different disciplines have been brought together for the European Space Agency Aurora programme. 

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PanCam engineering

Mechanical engineer, Tom Hunt, shows how precision machines are used to produce the PanCam instrument, which will be sent to the European Space Agency to be integrated on to the ExoMars rover.  Electronics engineer, Barry Hancock, shows the filter wheel being tested within the labs, at the Mullard Space Science...

Autonomous navigation

Dr. Mark Woods explains how the rover technologies must be partly autonomous, since the signals from Earth to Mars take too long for every command to be send from Earth.  The technologies developed for space, also have applications on Earth.

This video is part of a series of ten which look at the one of the...

Mars Yard

Guidance and navigation engineer, Richard Lancaster, explains how the ‘Mars Yard’, at Airbus Defence and Space, Stevenage, allows engineers to test out the capabilities of the ExoMars rover.  He talks about the need to transmit all commands and receive data through a spacecraft orbiting Mars.  Spacecraft engineer,...

Landing sites

Planetary scientists, Dr. Matthew Balme and Dr. Elliot Sefton-Nash, talk about how challenging it is to find a scientifically compelling site to land in, once the engineering considerations in terms of the landing has been taken into account.

This video is part of a series of ten which look at the one of the...

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