{"id":224006,"date":"2025-10-19T06:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T06:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/224006\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T06:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T06:49:08","slug":"technology-heading-for-mars-is-created-in-surrey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/224006\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology heading for Mars is created in Surrey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Should a future mission to Mars discover life on the planet&#8217;s surface there is a chance a laboratory in the Surrey countryside will have played a role.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Mullard Space Science Laboratory, sited in a Victorian mansion in 30 acres (12 hectares) in the Surrey Hills, was founded in 1966, with help from the electronics company Mullard Ltd.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Part of University College London (UCL), it is the UK&#8217;s largest university-based space research group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Its scientists are creating technology due to be sent on missions to Mars.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"An ariel view of the Victorian mansion in the Surrey countryside from October 1965.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"946\" height=\"532\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/d19afa88ce59998a8c1c2739791747e5.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The laboratory was founded in 1966 [Mullard Space Science Laboratory]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Cleanliness is vital, as Dr Catherine Regan told Secret Surrey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We have clean rooms that are cleaner than a surgery,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s the same grade as a hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We don&#8217;t want to take any contamination into space. If we find life we want to be sure it&#8217;s Martian life, and not life we&#8217;ve taken from Earth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We can&#8217;t even have dust particles.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Engineer Barry Whiteside is working on instruments that will be put on a rover to explore the surface of Mars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;An infra-red spectrometer will look at different rocks and materials,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It has a 2m (6ft) drill that will go deep into the surface, deeper than any other rover has gone before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Along with other remote instruments on the rover, it will hopefully help us find the building blocks of life on Mars.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"An exterior view of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, a light brown brick Victorian mansion, with a rectangular ornamental pond in the foreground.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"632\" height=\"355\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/9a95d3e58d6562e67a847e434d4c3f39.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The cutting edge space technology is being created in a former Victorian mansion [Mullard Space Science Laboratory]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He described working at the laboratory as &#8220;the ultimate motivation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I used to be proud when my mother put something [I&#8217;d made] on the fridge, let alone going to a different planet, so it&#8217;s very cool.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow BBC Surrey on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BBCSurrey\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a>, on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BBCSurrey\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:X;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">X<\/a>. Send your story ideas to <a href=\"https:\/\/ca.news.yahoo.com\/mailto:southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk\" data-ylk=\"slk:southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk <\/a> or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.<\/p>\n<p>More on this storyRelated internet links<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Should a future mission to Mars discover life on the planet&#8217;s surface there is a chance a laboratory&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,107262,84258,107261,66,107264,107263,87674,107266,62180,107265],"class_list":["post-224006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dust-particles","tag-mission-to-mars","tag-mullard-space-science-laboratory","tag-science","tag-secret-surrey","tag-surface-of-mars","tag-surrey","tag-surrey-hills","tag-university-college-london","tag-victorian-mansion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}