ExoMars rover twin rehearses its first drive onto Mars 20+ times

Before the Rosalind Franklin rover can search for signs of life on Mars, it has to get off its lander. ESA engineers have now rehearsed that step more than 20 times.

The test

Amalia is a full-size twin of the rover. Over a two-month campaign at ALTEC in Turin, it drove off a mock landing platform onto simulated Martian ground. The team made each run harder:

• Mars gravity: a ceiling rig carried two-thirds of the rover's 300 kg weight, mimicking gravity at about one-third of Earth's.
• Tilt: a hydraulic platform tilted the lander by 20°.
• Obstacles: rocks and slopes were placed under the ramps.

Two ways off, one chance

The lander has ramps at the front and at the back. Controllers will choose one using only orbital images. "On Mars, we will only have one chance," says ESA's rover team leader Eric Zekri. The three-metre aluminium ramps with a honeycomb surface were built by Poland's Astronika. Thales Alenia Space is the industrial prime contractor.

Next stop: 2030

Rosalind Franklin's real journey across Mars begins in 2030. The tests give the team experience with what ESA calls one of the most critical moments of the mission.