Inside the UK ‘Mars Yard’ where engineers are working to find life on Mars

A 300KG rover could pull off “one of the most important discoveries ever made” and find Martian life on Mars.

The Mars Yard in Stevenage, UK, is built to replicate conditions on the Red Planet with 300 tonnes of tennis court sand that has been specifically air-dried. Picture: Victoria Craw

IT’S a bold claim for a scientist to make, but if Ben Nye and his team pull off their next mission, it could be “maybe one of the most important discoveries ever made”.

The UK-based Airbus engineer is not exaggerating. He’s spent the past three years working on a 300kg rover that could change life on earth as we know it.

The joint Russian and European ExoMars Mission is set to land on the red planet in spring 2020 after nine-months hurtling through space.

“They’re emotional moments, the launch,” said the man responsible for the guidance system for the first autonomously driven rover to traverse our Martian neighbour.

“This is a real threshold.”

While rovers have landed on Mars before, the ExoMars project will be groundbreaking for two reasons.

It’s the first time a vehicle will be able to map its own path on Martian soil, travelling up to 70 metres per day. That makes it a veritable Usain Bolt compared to previous ones that have been controlled by earth with a 20-minute delay and vastly increases the “amount of interesting science you can do in a day”.

Secondly, it will be the first rover to drill down into the bedrock of the planet in what scientists believe are places life may have once thrived.

“We’re interested in areas that look like they might have been riverbeds, rich life pockets,” Mr Nye said about the planet that has around one per cent of the atmosphere that earth does.

“Even if there has been life there’s so much radiation it would tend to be destroyed … There’s a much better chance of finding something in tact if we drill down to just above the bed rock.”

As for why the search for life on Mars is so compelling, Mr Nye said: “If the molten core of earth solidified and we no longer have that magnetosphere, then the atmosphere could be stripped away.

“It’s almost an example of what could happen to earth if it all went quite wrong.”

A previous prototype of the rover.

The current prototype is one third of the final weight to replicate the one third gravity environment.

That possibility has led to an explosion of Mars-related research and investment from space agencies and private companies that has captured the public imagination about life on the red planet and beyond.

In the UK, the site for much of that is Airbus Defence and Space located in a sprawling industrial estate in Stevenage about 50km outside London that is part state-of-the-art laboratory, part Dr Evil’s lair.

The 1950s-style block is where the company operates the UK Ministry of Defence’s “Skynet” satellite system, builds communication satellites and spacecraft for a huge range of missions. Inside, the wide halls contain windows to vast laboratories filled with engineers assembling spacecraft and solving the complex challenges that involves.

One cavernous space contains a solar orbiter that will travel closer to the sun than ever before and follow it at the same rate of rotation. The 2018 mission means scientists will be able to watch one particular spot change over time and glean more information about how the sun works.

The heat shield is built to withstand 600 degrees and covered in burned, crushed, animal bones.

It is just one of the surprising solutions to the challenging question: How to protect the orbiter from frying to a crisp while allowing scientific gadgets to see their subject on the outside?

The answer in this case is to use the same theory involved in fine bone china, by coating the shield in the “blackest black” they can find that allows heat to be absorbed and radiated more quickly than white or mirrored surfaces.

Other windows at the centre reveal the “spine” of a spacecraft being delicately “woven” from carbon fire and coated with resin before being baked in a terrifyingly large oven.

Elsewhere, engineers work diligently on the Aeolus, a low-orbit satellite fitted with the world’s biggest laser that will measure wind frequency at one kilometre intervals from the earth’s surface.

The project will capture more wind data in its first week than we have ever known before which could lead to huge advances in weather forecasting and see the end of in-flight turbulence.

Despite being at the cutting edge of science, Airbus customers remain risk averse when it comes to trying new techniques on their designs.

“It just has to work first time,” Mr Nye said about the multi-million dollar projects all designed for a unique purpose.

“Unless there is a massive benefit from a new technology, it’s probably not going to be used. It just has to be reliable.”

A huge solar orbiter will travel closer to the sun than ever before with a heat shield make of burned, crushed animal bones. Picture: Victoria Craw

The low-orbit Aeolus will use the Doppler effect to measure wind speeds on earth and could drastically improve the ability to accurately forecast winds. Picture: Victoria Craw

An oven the size of a living room used to ‘bake’ the component that will become the ‘spine’ of a space craft. Picture: Picture: Victoria Craw

It’s a theory that has been taken to heart on the third prototype of the ExoMars rover, that uses less computer power than a smartphone to capture 3D maps of the red planet, operate the drill and analyse samples for the amino acids and organic materials regarded as the “signatures of life”.

Despite the 30m x 13m “Mars yard” filled with 300 tonnes of specially-dried sand in order for it to train, engineers still face the space-specific conundrum: How to test how the Rover will operate in environment that has one third of the earth’s gravity?

The answer has been to strip the frame of its roof, solar panel and drill until it weighs just one third of what it will on Mars.

“You can’t test it in an exactly representative environment,” Mr Nye said about the vehicle that must also remain free of organic material and be built in a sterile lab to avoid contamination from the kind of materials it will try and detect

“The ultimate is to find a different kind of life.”

The next major test for the team will be on October 19 when a previous launch is due to test the technology needed for a controlled landing in 2020.

If that is successful, it could pave the way for a mission that would bring back samples of Martian life.

As for the pressure of building a vehicle that has seen millions of dollars and years of people’s lives invested in it, Mr Nye’s response is pragmatic.

“It’s more likely to go right than wrong,” he said about the pressure involved in launches and landings. “It’s just part of the job.”

Follow the ExoMars Rover progress at the ESA website.

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