SUCCESSFUL MARS SPACE MISSION FOR MATRA ÉLECTRONIQUE

Launched in July 2020 by NASA, the Perseverance rover landed safely on Mars on Thursday, February 18, 2021, in Jezero Crater, a 45-kilometre-diameter impact basin that a river filled with liquid water 3.5 billion years ago. Its aim is to explore the red planet in search of traces of past microbial life.

Our teams are proud to have contributed, alongside CNES, to the success of this space mission by participating in the SuperCam construction, a French infrared spectrometer embarkked on the rover.

Using SuperCam’s 2-color laser and infrared spectroscopy, scientists will explore the chemical and mineralogical diversity of the sites crossed by the rover. This first assessment will identify the most interesting rock targets. Scientists will thus use this information, obtained remotely, to supplement it with analyzes in contact with 2 other instruments located on the robotic arm of the rover. All of these analyzes will help in the choice of rock or soil cores that will be taken with the rover’s sample collection system, and which will ultimately be brought back to Earth.

For more than 20 years, Matra Électronique is a major player in space and new space sectors as reflected our CNES and ESA certificates.

Whatever your orbit is, contact us !

• More about SuperCam
• Discover our spatial application 
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• Contact our Business Department