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01 May 2003

Mars Express at the Baikonur cosmodrome preparing for June launch

The European Space Agency's Mars Express interplanetary probe, built
with the contribution of Alenia Spazio, left Toulouse, where it
underwent extensive environmental, thermal, mechanical and electrical
testing, under the co-ordination of the Alenia Spazio team, in March
and is now undergoing checks and tests in at the Baikonur launch site
in Kazakhstan. 

Scheduled for an early June launch on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket, and in a
fixed launch window occurring only once every 17 years, Mars Express
will make a 400 million kilometre, six-month journey to reach the Red
Planet in December 2003.

Once inserted into an elliptical, quasi-polar orbit around Mars, the
spacecraft - the first European mission to a planet - will begin the
orbital and in situ study of its interior, surface and atmosphere
using seven scientific instruments on the orbiter and the Beagle 2
lander that will be placed on the surface.

Alenia Spazio has played an important role in the Mars Express
mission with overall responsibility for the assembly, integration and
testing of the satellite, development of the dual S/X band
transponder, the Sub-surface Sounding Radar Altimeter, and a pair of
communication systems for the Orbiter/Lander link.

Another major Italian contribution is the radar for the MARSIS (Mars
Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding) experiment
that will be used to detect the presence of water-bearing strata up
to a depth of 2-5 km beneath the Martian surface.

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