CRI听力:'Shake and Bake' test to prove Mars Rover's red planet readiness

The European Space Agency's mission to search for life on Mars has reached an important milestone with its six-wheeled surface rover prototype ready for its "shake and bake". 

Built by Airbus Defence and Space north of London in Stevenage, the so-called Structural Thermal Model is being packed off to Toulouse for a raft of tests to ensure the real ExoMars rover handles anything the red planet can throw at it.

If the 2020 mission goes to plan it would be Europe's first rover on Mars, following several successful NASA landings.

The ESA rover will be more sophisticated though, featuring a two-metre exploration drill and an autonomous navigation system.

ExoMars Delivery Manager Abbie Hutty will be keeping a close eye on the prototype tests in Toulouse.

"The temperatures on Mars are extremely cold but also there is no air so in the sun there is no breeze to cool you down so you can get minus 130 degrees Centigrade at night and in the daytime parts of the Rover may heat up to 85 or 90 Centigrade."

Data sent back from the ESA's Mars Express satellite are helping scientists choose the most suitable landing site. 

Hutty suggests once safely on the surface the craft will trundle up to 100 metres per day, drilling into the Martian bedrock seeking evidence of life.

"That's the most exciting thing that hasn't been done before, we've got a huge two metre drill so it can go into the crust which is where we think life would be if it was still surviving because at the surface the radiation is extreme and conditions too hostile. Down below different layers of rock, maybe in a fissure where there may be water deposits could be a nice place for life to still be surviving."

Airbus's Stevenage complex features the Mars Yard -- a mock-up of the planet's surface complete with specially dried sand, boulders and Mars-like light intensity.

It provides a realistic landscape to test the ExoMars Rover's autonomous navigation which will enable it to steer itself rather than wait 24 minutes for instructions from Earth.

Hutty suggests rubber wheels are not an option because they are 'organic'.

"The autonomous navigation is one of the big things we have been working on in Stevenage. If it can look at what's in front of it, decide where it has got to go, how it's going to pick it's path safely through that all by itself you can do a lot more science. The cool thing about the wheels is that they are fully metallic and give us the traction and grip of a rubber wheel without taking anything organic from earth. They will be able climb over rocks and also dig through deep sand."

Once testing is completed in France, work will begin on building the finished rover as well as a twin that will stay in Stevenage.