ExoMars Rover – rear view, annotated
Date: 14 March 2017
Satellite: ExoMars rover
Copyright: ESA/ATG medialab
The 2020 mission of the ExoMars programme will deliver a European rover and a Russian surface platform to the surface of Mars.
ESA's rover, pictured here, will be the first to combine the capability to move across the surface and to study Mars at depth.
The locomotion system is composed of 3 bogie structures – pivoting undercarriages – that are connected to the six flexible wheels.
Power is supplied to the rover by solar arrays. These are folded during the journey to Mars and deployed once the rover is on the martian surface.
Two UHF monopole antennas are used to communicate with Mars orbiters, including the Trace Gas Orbiter.
The antennas of the WISDOM ground-penetrating radar can be seen in this view. WISDOM is one of the suite of instruments on the rover that provide scientists with the ability to conduct a step-by-step exploration of Mars, beginning at panoramic (metre) scales and progressively converging to smaller (sub-millimetre) studies, concluding with the molecular identification of organic compounds.
ExoMars is a joint endeavour between ESA and Roscosmos, with important contribution from NASA.
