Mars Express / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA

ESA's official Mars Express website features the latest news and status reports on Europe's spacecraft orbiting around Mars. See the latest images of Mars taken by Mars Express' instruments!

Mars Express v2.0 / Operations / Our Activities / ESA

11 April 2018. Every so often, your smartphone or tablet receives new software to improve its functionality and extend its life. Now, ESA's Mars Express is getting a fresh install, delivered across over 150 million km of space. With nearly 15 years in orbit, Mars Express – one of the most successful interplanetary missions ever ...

Mars500 / Human Spaceflight / Our Activities / ESA

LATEST ARTICLES · · Storm hunter in position · · Mars impact crater or supervolcano? · Top tomatoes thanks to Mars missio… · Mars Express v2.0 · · Swarm tracks elusive ocean magneti… MOST-VIEWED ARTICLES · · Philae found! · Live updates: Rosetta mission… · Touchdown! Rosetta's Philae p… · Pioneering Philae ...

Mars impact crater or supervolcano? / Mars Express / Space ...

12 April 2018. These images from ESA's Mars Express show a crater named Ismenia Patera on the Red Planet. Its origin remains uncertain: did a meteorite smash into the surface or could it be the remnants of a supervolcano? Ismenia Patera – patera meaning 'flat bowl' in Latin – sits in the Arabia Terra region on Mars.

Mars Express mission facts / Mars Express / Space Science / Our ...

How the mission was named: Mars Express is so called because it was built more quickly than any other comparable planetary mission. Beagle 2 was named after the ship in which Charles Darwin sailed when formulating his ideas about evolution. Prime contractor: Astrium, Toulouse, France, leading a consortium of 24 ...

Geography of Mars / Mars Express / Space Science / Our Activities ...

Although Mars is a small planet – its radius is just a little over half of Earth's – we now know that it boasts scenery on a scale that makes Mount Everest and the Grand Canyon seem unimpressive by comparison. Running from the eastern flanks of the rise, roughly along the equator, is Valles Marineris. This is a split in the ...

Mars upside down / Mars Express / Space Science / Our Activities ...

14 December 2017. Which way is up in space? Planets are usually shown with the north pole at the top and the south pole at the bottom. In this remarkable image taken by ESA's Mars Express, the Red Planet is seen with north at the bottom, and the equator at the top. The image was taken on 19 June for calibrating the ...

First test success for largest Mars mission parachute / ExoMars ...

First test success for largest Mars mission parachute. 29 March 2018. The largest parachute ever to fly on a Mars mission has been deployed in the first of a series of tests to prepare for the upcoming ExoMars mission that will deliver a rover and a surface science platform to the Red Planet.

Fracture swarms on Mars / Mars Express / Space Science / Our ...

Nov 16, 2017 ... The fractures in the Sirenum Fossae region in the southern hemisphere were imaged by ESA's Mars Express in March. They extend for thousands of kilometres in length, far beyond the boundaries of this image. The fractures divide the crust into blocks: the movement along a pair of faults causes the centre ...

Mars Express views moons set against Saturn's rings / Mars Express ...

Mar 1, 2018 ... Mars' two small moons are intriguing objects. While we know something of their size, appearance and position thanks to spacecraft such as ESA's Mars Express, much remains unknown. How and where did they form? What are they made of? What exactly is on their surfaces – and could we send a lander ...