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Maggie McKee, NewScientist.com
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The hunt for water on Mars is going underground with the long-awaited deployment of a "divining rod" antenna on Europe's Mars Express spacecraft. A 10-day deployment sequence began on Monday after more than a year of delays.
The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) instrument consists of three long fibreglass tubes strung with wires that will bounce radio waves off the planet. Some waves will penetrate the surface – potentially revealing oases of water, in liquid or ice form - lurking a few kilometres underground.
The antenna is stored folded on Mars Express and was scheduled to be deployed in April 2004. But European Space Agency officials postponed the date over concerns the antenna could endanger the mission by smacking into, or getting snagged on, the spacecraft during deployment.
But further Earth-based reconstructions showed the antenna material has a small chance of damaging the craft in the event of a strike. And mission officials say they expect to be able to operate the spacecraft even if a tube gets caught on it...
The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) instrument consists of three long fibreglass tubes strung with wires that will bounce radio waves off the planet. Some waves will penetrate the surface – potentially revealing oases of water, in liquid or ice form - lurking a few kilometres underground.
The antenna is stored folded on Mars Express and was scheduled to be deployed in April 2004. But European Space Agency officials postponed the date over concerns the antenna could endanger the mission by smacking into, or getting snagged on, the spacecraft during deployment.
But further Earth-based reconstructions showed the antenna material has a small chance of damaging the craft in the event of a strike. And mission officials say they expect to be able to operate the spacecraft even if a tube gets caught on it...