The European Space Agency (ESA) will launch an upgrade for the Mars Express spacecraft that will bring massive improvements to the orbiter’s scientific capabilities.
SEE GALLERY – 2 IMAGES
The Mars Express space exploration mission by the European Space Agency was launched on June 2, 2003, and since then, the orbit has been exploring the surface of the Red Planet from above. The orbit has been in operation for more than 19 years and uses its Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) instrument to bounce low-frequency radio waves from the surface of Mars to see what’s underneath.
Researchers are exploring areas of the red planet, looking for groundwater and any atmospheric change. The MARSIS instrument is a 130-foot antenna that can see up to 3 miles below the planet’s surface. The instrument was built with Windows 98 and, according to ESA, the next software update will drastically improve antenna performance as it will increase signal reception, onboard data processing and increase the consistency of the antenna. data that is sent to Earth.
“We faced a number of challenges to improve the performance of MARSIS. No less important because MARSIS software was originally designed over 20 years ago, using a Microsoft Windows 98-based development environment!”, Explains Carlo Nenna, Enginium software engineer who is helping ESA with the upgrade.
In addition, the major upgrade will allow researchers to keep the MARSIS instrument on five times longer, as well as increase the area the orbiter can scan, which means the orbiter will now be able to explore larger areas more quickly. The Mars Express is operated by ESA and the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), and according to Andrea Cicchetti, director of operations of MARSIS at the INAF, the next update is like “having a new instrument on board Mars Express almost 20 years later. Launch “.
In particular, ESA did not specify which version of Windows the Mars Express orbiter will receive, but it could be assumed that it will not be Windows 11, especially given the age of the hardware on board.
The update “will allow you to see under the surfaces of Mars and its moon Phobos in more detail than ever,” according to ESA.
Hopefully, with these and other future improvements, researchers will be able to quickly locate regions of Mars that have a large amount of water below the surface.