LAMBAHRAUN LAVAFIELD, Iceland: To prepare for the next mission to Mars in 2020, NASA has takento the lava fields of Iceland to get its new robotic space explorer ready forthe job. With its black basalt sand, wind-swept dunes and craggy peaks, theLambahraun lava field at the foot of Iceland's second biggest glacier,Langjokull, was chosen as a stand-in for the Red Planet's surface. For threeweeks, 15 scientists and engineers sent by the US space agency descended on thesite, 100 km from the capital, Reykjavik, last month to develop a prototype.
It will aim tocontinue the work of the "Curiosity" rover, which has been exploringMars since 2012 in search of signs of ancient life and making preparations forhuman exploration. Experts say that Iceland, a volcanic island in the middle ofthe North Atlantic, is in many ways reminiscent of the fourth planet from theSun. "It's a very good analogue for Mars exploration and learning how todrive Mars rovers," said Adam Deslauriers, manager of space and education,at Canada's Mission Control Space Services. The company has been commissionedby NASA to test a rover prototype as part of the SAND-E (Semi-AutonomousNavigation for Detrital Environments) project.
The prototype isa small, electric vehicle with white panels and an orange chassis. It has afour-wheel drive propelled by two motors and is powered by 12 small carbatteries stacked inside. "This rover we have... (is) basicallyindestructible," Deslauriers told AFP. "The rovers that we have onMars and the Moon would be a lot more sensitive to the environment andconditions of Iceland. "A Moon rover is completely unprepared forrain," he added, just as a rain shower swept in.
Equipped withsensors, a computer, a dual-lens camera and controlled remotely, the rovermoves its approximately 570 kg at a leisurely speed of about 20 cm per second.The speed needs to be slow to enable the rover to collect data and imageryproperly, Mark Vandermeulen, a robotics engineer at Mission Control SpaceServices, said. The meager pace on the lava field is still two to four timesfaster than the speed it will be driving at its extraterrestrial destination.
Utilising itssensors and camera, the rover gathers and classifies data from its environmentand sends back the findings to the engineers' trailer. The engineers thenpackage the data and forward it to a tent where the scientists are huddled, tosimulate how the data would be sent from Mars to Earth. The rover exploringIceland is just a prototype for the one that will be going to Mars next year.That one, which has yet to be named, will also be able to collect samples andstore them in tubes to be brought back to Earth by future missions. As theprototype isn't capable of doing this, researchers walk to the area studied,armed with radiometers and other equipment, to collect all the data samplesthat the finished rover would be able to do.
The sites areselected to study how the chemical composition and physical properties of thesand and rocks change as they move from the glacier to a nearby river. BeforeMars became an inhospitable frozen desert with an average temperature of minus63 degrees C, scientists believe that the planet shared many of thecharacteristics of the subarctic island. "The mineralogy in Iceland isvery similar to what we would find on Mars," Ryan Ewing, associateprofessor of geology at Texas A&M University, said.
In particular,Ewing referred to minerals such as olivine and pyroxenes, both dark so-calledmafic rocks, which have also been found on Mars. "In addition to that, wedon't have much vegetation, it's cold and we have some of the environments likesand dunes and rivers and glaciers that Mars has evidence of in the past,"Ewing said. Iceland has previously been used as a training ground for NASAmissions.
During the Apollomission years, 32 astronauts in the mid-1960s received geological training inthe Askja lava fields and near the Krafla crater in the north of the country.The setting allows NASA to test equipment and procedures, as well as the peopleperforming them, in extreme environments while remaining on terra firma.Mission Control says it is planning to return to Iceland next summer before thelaunch of the next Mars rover mission, scheduled between July 17 and Aug 5,2020. - AFP