{"id":2382,"date":"2012-08-08T18:45:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T18:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rf.podcastfixit.com\/index.php\/2012\/08\/08\/montrealer-spearheads-search-for-life\/"},"modified":"2015-06-01T19:42:04","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T19:42:04","slug":"montrealer-spearheads-search-for-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2012\/08\/08\/montrealer-spearheads-search-for-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Montrealer spearheads search for life on Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nFirst time Canada controls instruments operating on red planet <\/i><\/h3>\n
\nBy Robert Frank<\/b><\/div>\n
\nwww.thesuburban.com<\/a><\/b><\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\nNotre Dame de Gr\u00e2ce resident St\u00e9phane Desjardins is at the forefront of Canadian scientific instruments that will spend the next two years searching for evidence that Mars is capable of supporting life.<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cWe\u2019re not looking for proof of life itself,\u201d the CanadianSpace Agency\u2019s<\/a> director of exploration projects told The Suburban<\/i> in an interview. \u201cWe\u2019re just looking at the biological potential in the region where the Curiosity<\/a> rover landed.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\nDesjardins directed the project to build a device called an alpha particle x-ray spectrometer<\/a> (APXS) that will beam back information about the red planet\u2019s geology, radiation and other environmental data.<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cOn Earth, we know that life can exist if there are organic compounds, water and a source of energy. Those are the kind of things that we will be looking for,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe want to find out whether those conditions exist or have existed on Mars.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\nDesjardins highlighted how a team of more than a thousand engineers, most of them employed by MacDonald, Dettweiler & Associates<\/a>, helped to perfect the Canadian-built APXS, which is designed to detect the composition of Martian rocks and soil more rapidly and continuously than any previous mission.<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cThe new APXS can also provide reliable data over a broader [temperature] range by introducing a cooler, so the instrument is not limited to a certain time of the day,\u201d he said. \u201cIt can be used throughout the day.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n

\nControlled from Canada<\/h3>\n
\nAccording to Desjardins, now that Curiosity has safely landed on Mars, NASA will spend the first few days checking that all the systems are working properly.<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cThey\u2019re doing what is called an aliveness test of the instruments. After that, they will spend the next couple of weeks testing how well the instruments function. This is a long, one Mars-year (two Earth years) mission, so they want to take the time to ensure that everything is in proper order before we start surface operations.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cThat\u2019s when the rover will start moving and taking samples,\u201d he continued, \u201cwhich will happen around September.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cProviding an instrument like APXS includes Canadian scientists in the overall team for the whole $2.5 billion NASA mission,\u201d Desjardins enthused, \u201cmaking us [full-fledged] members of the scientific team.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cAfter operating from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory<\/a> in Pasadena, California for the first three months, the scientists will return to their home institutions,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe Canadian instruments will [thereafter] be operated from Guelph University<\/a>, marking the first time that we will operate an instrument on Mars from an operations centre in Canada.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\nDesjardins, who was also involved in the 2008 Phoenix<\/a> mission, which measured atmospheric conditions and discovered frozen water at the Martian north pole, is even more excited about the Curiosity mission.<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cThis one is more satisfying, because it will come into contact with Mars\u2019 soil and rocks.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cIt is quite impressive to land an object the size of a small car 570 million kilometres away within two kilometres of its target landing zone,\u201d Desjardins added. \u201cEven more impressive is that [Mars is so far away that] the whole landing sequence had to be done autonomously.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cRadio communication with Earth takes 14 minutes, and the whole landing sequence\u2014from the time Curiosity entered the Martian atmosphere to touchdown\u2014took just seven minutes, so the spacecraft had to execute the entire landing by itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nCanadian Space Agency director of exploration projects St\u00e9phane Desjardins was also involved in the 2008 mission to Mars as well as the Curiosity probe which landed this week.<\/b><\/div>\n
\n
<\/b><\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
<\/b><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First time Canada controls instruments operating on red planet By Robert Frank www.thesuburban.com Notre Dame de Gr\u00e2ce resident St\u00e9phane Desjardins is at the forefront of Canadian scientific instruments that will spend the next two years searching for evidence that Mars is capable of supporting life. \u201cWe\u2019re not looking for proof of life itself,\u201d the CanadianSpace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMontrealer spearheads search for life on Mars - Newscoverage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2012\/08\/08\/montrealer-spearheads-search-for-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Montrealer spearheads search for life on Mars - 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