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| Mars Express to investigate Phobos |
| Phobos, the tiny innermost moon of Mars, is to come under unprecedented scrutiny after Europe's mission to Mars goes into orbit around the Red Planet late in 2003. Mars Express is due to pass within 3000 km of the 22 km diameter moon a few hundred times during its two-year nominal mission lifetime. |
| Date: 07 Jun 2001 |
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| Life, the universe and everything discussed in Frascati |
| Three important lines of discovery have been fuelling the growing belief that we are not, after all, alone in the universe. Many organic molecules have been discovered in space, suggesting that the building blocks of life are widespread; planets have been found orbiting other stars, raising the possibility that some may harbour life; and living organisms have been found alive and well in habitats on Earth so hostile that survival on Mars, or even other Solar System bodies, seems quite feasible. |
| Date: 28 May 2001 |
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| Call for ideas for the re-use of the MARS EXPRESS Platform - update |
| Updated: A list of submitted proposals for the re-use of the Mars Express platform has been added.
27-Mar-2001
A briefing to interested parties on the Call for Ideas for the re-use of the Mars Express platform took place at ESA Headquarters, Paris, on 23 March 2001.
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| Date: 22 May 2001 |
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| First European Workshop on Exo/Astrobiology |
| From 21 to 23 May, the first European Workshop on Exo/Astrobiology will be taking place at ESA/ESRIN, the European Space Agency establishment in Italy (Frascati, near Rome).
The workshop is being organised jointly by the European Exobiology Network and the European Space Agency.
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| Date: 16 May 2001 |
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| ESA's solar system explorers come alive |
| Two pioneering ESA spacecraft, Mars Express and Rosetta, are currently being assembled and tested in preparation for launch in 2003. Now, for the first time, the painstaking progress towards the completion of these technological marvels can be observed daily on computer screens around the
world. |
| Date: 08 May 2001 |
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| Europe goes to Mars - preparations are well under way |
| If you live in Europe, there's almost certainly a research institute or industrial company near you that is contributing materials or expertise to Mars Express, Europe's first mission to the Red Planet.
Under the umbrella of the European Space Agency, at least 25 companies from 15 European countries are building hardware or software for the spacecraft, or otherwise contributing their expertise; and more than 200 scientists from research institutes in all ESA member states and beyond are contributing towards the scientific payload. "The Mars Express project is providing about 1000 jobs throughout Europe," estimates Rudi Schmidt, Mars Express Project Manager at ESTEC, the European Space Agency's technical centre in the Netherlands.
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| Date: 06 Apr 2001 |
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| Mars keeps turning up surprises |
| It was standing room only for the "Water and life on Mars" session at the European Geophysical Society's General Assembly in Nice last week. "This shows that the life issue is by no means dead. This was a very lively session," commented Agustin Chicarro, Project Scientist for ESA's Mars Express mission. |
| Date: 05 Apr 2001 |
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| ESA's solar system missions to get star billing in Nice |
| Geophysicists attending next week's General Assembly of
the European Geophysical Society in Nice won't just be discussing the latest scientific research about the Earth. They will also be turning their attention to other bodies within our solar system and the missions Europe is sending to explore them. |
| Date: 20 Mar 2001 |
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| Mars Express completes its first journey - from Zurich to Stevenage |
| If youre travelling on Europe's roads this year, you may spot a very large vehicle (5m long and 3.5m wide), bearing the Mars Express logo. It will be making slow progress and will be accompanied by a police escort. Inside the clean, air-conditioned environment will be the Mars Express spacecraft in transit between industrial contractors in Switzerland, the UK, Italy or France. |
| Date: 14 Mar 2001 |
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| Call for ideas for the re-use of the MARS EXPRESS platform |
To be launched in 2005
Note that the briefing for the Call for Ideas for the re-use of the Mars Express platform will take place on 23 March 2001, in Paris Headquarters, room Cinema, from 13h00 to 15h00.
The search for more efficiency is a constant concern of the Science Directorate
since the initiation of the Horizon 2000 programme. As shown to ESA's SSAC and SPC, a
number of scientific missions have led to considerable savings achieved by adopting new
management procedures, exploiting cheaper industrial costs
(especially the re-using platforms or subsystems developed for the other missions),
and accessing cheaper launchers.
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| Date: 10 Mar 2001 |
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| Mars Express forges collaboration with Japanese Mars mission |
| International collaboration between Europe and Japan took a step forward last month when scientists building instruments for ESA's Mars Express mission travelled to
Japan for a meeting with their counterparts on Nozomi, the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science's (ISAS) mission to Mars. |
| Date: 26 Feb 2001 |
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| Build a 'Mars City'! |
Report of 'Mars City' Competition opening event in Brielle, 2nd of February.
Ex-astronaut Wubbo Ockels arrived at his old primary school in Brielle, Holland, in a school milk
truck with the very first 'Mars City' competition package last Friday.
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| Date: 09 Feb 2001 |
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| Build a 'Mars City'! |
| Wubbo Ockels invites junior school children to take
part in the ESA 'Mars City' competition.
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| Date: 01 Feb 2001 |
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| Mars Express takes shape - and on time, too! |
| The spacecraft ESA will send to Mars in 2003 is now well and truly under construction. Last week,
engineers at Contraves, Zurich, Switzerland were celebrating the readiness of the Mars Express flight
structure to undergo tests to ensure that it meets its design requirements. "The tests are starting on
time. If you look at our planning from the beginning of the programme, we're keeping to the schedule.
It's extremely pleasing," says Don McCoy who is responsible for assembly, integration and verification
for Mars Express at ESTEC. |
| Date: 31 Jan 2001 |
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| View the Beagle 2 landing site |
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| Date: 31 Jan 2001 |
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| Rosetta's Christmas present to Mars Express |
| On 25 December 2003, ESA's Mars Express orbiter will arrive in orbit around the Red Planet
after releasing a small lander named Beagle 2 onto its rust-coloured, dusty deserts. This wonderful
Christmas present for planetary scientists would not have been possible without major contributions
from another ESA project - the Rosetta comet chaser. |
| Date: 25 Dec 2000 |
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| Beagle 2 landing site selected |
| The Mars Express lander, Beagle 2, will land on Isidis Planitia, a large flat region that overlies the boundary between the ancient highlands and the northern plains. The choice of site was announced last week at a meeting of the Mars Express science working team in ESTEC, Noordwijk, the Netherlands. |
| Date: 20 Dec 2000 |
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| Discoveries about life on Earth inspire Beagle 2 |
| The nineteenth century spirit of discovery is inspiring the effort to land the first probe on Mars in the
twenty first century. Last week, as if to give the inspiration a boost, the largely-British team building the
Beagle 2 lander for Mars Express held the second meeting for 'adjunct' scientists in one of the finest
nineteenth century monuments to discoveries about life on Earth - the Natural History Museum in London. |
| Date: 15 Dec 2000 |
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| Europe plays a major part in future Mars exploration |
| Starting with Mars Express and Beagle 2 and ending with a possible Sample Return Mission,
Europe will be making a major contribution to Mars exploration over the next two decades.
Europe's plans complement the new programme recently announced by NASA in the wake
of last year's mission losses. |
| Date: 22 Nov 2000 |
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| What we know about Mars: read all about it on the ESA science web site |
| It's fewer than 40 years since the first spacecraft to visit Mars, the Mariners, finally demonstrated
that there are no canals or thick vegetation on the planet. Since then, our knowledge about Mars
has grown dramatically with every subsequent visit by a successful space mission. |
| Date: 02 Nov 2000 |
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