{"id":425012,"date":"2026-04-30T10:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T10:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/425012\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T10:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T10:45:15","slug":"date-set-for-british-made-rover-to-land-on-mars-in-search-of-life-on-red-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/425012\/","title":{"rendered":"Date set for British-made rover to land on Mars in search of life on Red Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK Space Agency has set a date for a for British-made rover to land on Mars in search of life on Red Planet. <\/p>\n

The Rosalind Franklin rover was initially scheduled to land on Mars in 2023 as part of a European Space Agency (ESA) mission.<\/p>\n

The project has received expertise from scientists at host of British institutions – including the universities of Aberystwyth, Bradford, UCL, Leicester – and RAL Space and Teledyne E2v.<\/p>\n

And now, the agency has finally set a date for the heavily delayed mission – 2028 – after Nasa gave it the green light.<\/p>\n

The US agency said it had selected SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket to launch the mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida – the same place from which Artemis II blasted off just weeks ago.<\/p>\n

“The mission is targeting opportunities to launch no earlier than late 2028,” Nasa confirmed – and it will arrive on the Red Planet in 2030.<\/p>\n

\"Rosalind<\/p>\n

The Rosalind Franklin rover was initially scheduled to land on Mars in 2023<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

DSIT<\/p>\n

The highly anticipated venture will see the rover scouring the surface of the Red Planet for signs of life.<\/p>\n

Former Science Secretary Peter Kyle previously said the rover “could unlock some of the key questions that humanity is asking of itself”.<\/p>\n

The Rosalind rover has had a troubled history – with early plans for launch dating as far back as 2018.<\/p>\n

Nasa will supply the launcher for the rover, as well as a number of other elements including its radioisotope heater units.<\/p>\n

\"Mars<\/p>\n

The highly anticipated venture will see the rover scouring the surface of the Red Planet for signs of life<\/p>\n

| NASA<\/p>\n

The financial shortfall had to be picked up by ESA member states, before the pandemic forced the completion of the rover to be pushed back.<\/p>\n

The mission was then essentially grounded when Russia was removed from the project following its Ukraine invasion.<\/p>\n

Airbus was then contracted to build the lander as well as the rover.<\/p>\n

In addition to looking for signs of life, scientists are hopeful the British-built rover will lay the foundations for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. <\/p>\n

It will be equipped with drilling technology – capable of penetrating two metres into Martian soil – which may uncover molecules hidden below the surface of Earth’s neighbouring planet.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/p>\n

Peter Kyle said the heavily delayed mission may ‘unlock some of the key questions that humanity is asking of itself’<\/p>\n

| PA<\/p>\n

The vehicle will be powered by electricity generated from its solar arrays.<\/p>\n

It has been designed with software which will enable it to have autonomy over it’s decision-making while on Mars, using optical sensors to navigate the harsh surface.<\/p>\n

The orbiter will then relay data from the rover back to Earth for researchers to examine. <\/p>\n

Chris Draper, the head of Mars programmes at Airbus, said: “Before we were building our rover and had to rely on others to get it down safely.<\/p>\n

“Whereas now we’re playing a big part in that lander platform.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK Space Agency has set a date for a for British-made rover to land on Mars in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[72682,61,60,43,82,247],"class_list":["post-425012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-best-of-britain","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}