Europe’s ExoMars program has already kicked off with the Trace Gas Orbiter, currently manoeuvring downward to its final science orbit. But ExoMars is not limited to a single mission. By 2020, ESA hopes to launch the first European rover to the Red Planet. Abbie Hutty, a Lead Spacecraft Structures Engineer, comes on to talk about what it takes to design, test and build a rover chassis, from wheels to mast, and what this rover means in the broader view of Mars exploration and international cooperation.

Links

• Abbie’s Twitter Account
• ESA’s ExoMars 2020 Mission Overview (check sidebar for more)
• Animation showing surface operations
• An older test showing the flexible metal wheels of ExoMars
• The opening of the Mars Yard at Stevenage, featuring Abbie herself

WeMartians music is “RetroFuture” and “Electrodoodle” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/