Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Mars Express - 16 years and counting:

  • 31-03-2020 10:47pm
    #1
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,537 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    article about how ESA have kept Mars Express going for 16 years and the tricks they've used.

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/31/mars_express/


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 5 ESH01


    "ESA's Mars Express (MEX) spacecraft is an interesting beast. Launched on 2 June 2003 from Baikonur aboard a Soyuz launcher, the 1,120kg vehicle (including the ill-fated Beagle 2 lander) arrived at the Red Planet on 25 December 2003. The Beagle 2 lander aside, the nominal mission plan for Mars Express (or MEX) called for the spacecraft to spend one Martian year (about 687 days) in orbit. Nearly 17 years later, MEX is still making discoveries." That's interesting


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,537 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Another good read on tricks used to keep a satellite on the go for way past is sell by date. .

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/01/xmm-newton/
    ESA's X-ray Multi Mirror (XMM) telescope, named for English physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, was launched on an Ariane 5 back on 10 December 1999. Funded for an initial two-year mission, with a ten-year design-life, the biggest science satellite built in Europe (at the time) is now entering its third decade of service.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 1,706 Mod ✭✭✭✭star gazer


    Return_of_the_extremely_elongated_cloud_on_Mars_pillars.jpg

    Mars Express
    https://twitter.com/esaoperations/status/1288379209358938112
    A mysteriously long, thin cloud has again appeared over the 20-km high Arsia Mons volcano on Mars.

    A recurrent feature, the cloud is made up of water ice, but despite appearances it is not a plume linked to volcanic activity. Instead, the curious stream forms as airflow is influenced by the volcano’s ‘leeward’ slope − the side that does not face the wind.

    These images of the cloud, which can reach up to 1800-km in length, were taken on 17 and 19 July by the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on Mars Express, which has been studying the Red Planet from orbit for the past 16 years.


Advertisement