Canadian Universities to Build Mars Robot

Posted 24 Aug 2007 at 15:48 UTC by Rog-a-matic

With funding from corporations, a group of universities in Canada are hoping to build a robot for a mission to Mars. The project, named Northern Light, is shooting for a budget of $20 million and has the goal of finishing the hardware in a year (a tiny fraction of what a large agency like NASA would allocate). Another year will be spent testing, then off to Mars late 2009, possibly on a Soviet-built launch vehicle. The goal: Look for water and life. Group members currently include Universities of Toronto, Waterloo, Winnipeg, Western Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Calgary, New Brunswick and Simon Fraser.

Good luck!!!, posted 27 Aug 2007 at 08:29 UTC by Nelson » (Journeyer)

A successful mars landing in only 2 years sounds slightly ambitious for a team that has never before placed anything into space.

On the other hand, they say that they may make use of some of the UK Beagle probe technology, so they will not be totally starting from scratch. And it sounds like it might be just a tiny lander, rather than a rover...

I wish them the very best of luck...They will need it!