Mission Involvement

Members of our group are involved in exploration of the Solar System, through active participation in spacecraft missions. From orbiters, landers, and rovers, our roles on science teams mean that we help define the scientific return of future missions, as well as taking part in mission operations.

Exomars 2016 tgo

This collaborative project between ESA and Roscosmos not only delivered the Schiaparelli lander in October 2016, but placed the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) into orbit around Mars. The final science orbit was reached in 2018, since when TGO has been returning valuable data on the atmosphere and surface of Mars.

Our role in the mission is through Peter Grindrod, selected as a Guest Investigator in 2016. We use images from the CaSSIS instrument to understand past and present processes on Mars. As part of the CaSSIS science team, we have also taken part in mission operations, planning several cycles of CaSSIS imaging, including Joel Davis helping to plan the first TGO image of NASA’s Perseverance rover after landing.

CaSSIS false-colour and pan-spectral images draped over CTX stereo DTM orthoimage, over delta deposits in Eberswalde Crater.
[Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS/Peter Grindrod]

NASA INSIGHT

The NASA Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission is a robotic lander designed to study the interior of Mars. After landing in 2018, InSight placed a seismometer on the surface of Mars, to measure seismic activity. Peter Grindrod is an Associate Team Member, focusing on identifying the source location and processes for seismic activity, through remote sensing data, particularly recent CaSSIS images.

Calculating possible source regions for different InSight events, with THEMIS global mosaic.
[Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech/ASU/Peter Grindrod]

EXOMARS 2022 rOSALIND FRANKLIN ROVER

Members of our group are heavily involved in the ExoMars 2022 Rosalind Franklin Rover mission, scheduled to land on Mars in summer 2023. Our long-term activity on the mission will continue through operations, where we will take part in daily planning and science exploitation.

PanCam

Several of us are Science Team members of the Panoramic Camera (PanCam) instrument, which will be the eyes of the mission. PanCam consists of two wide-angle cameras (WACs) for multi-spectral stereoscopic imaging, and a high-resolution camera (HRC) for detailed colour imaging. We help lead the multi-spectral and mineralogy working group.

Landing Site Selection

We took part in the five year process of selecting a landing site for the mission. We helped lead the proposal of 2 of the final 4 sites, and have worked on all landing site candidates. Our group produced all of the CTX and HiRISE DTMs at all sites used during the landing site selection process, sharing all data with the site teams. We are currently working on several different research projects regarding the geological evolution of the chosen landing site at Oxia Planum.