ALTEN engineers support the conquest of space

On the occasion of World Space Week, we would like to remind you about the contribution of ALTEN engineers to space exploration.

World Space Week, established by a resolution of December 1999, is celebrated by UN member states on October 4-10. Its aim is to recognize the contributions of scientists and researchers who have expanded our knowledge of space. These dates are not accidental. On October 4, 1957, the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched into space in the USSR. On October 10, 1967, the Outer Space Treaty entered into force.

We also have our reasons to take part in the celebrations. The projects ALTEN engineers are working on include those dedicated to the conquest of space. Our team supported the construction of the Perseverance rover as part of the MARS 2020 mission coordinated by NASA. For almost four years, ALTEN engineers supported the construction of SuperCAM – a device that analyzes the chemical and mineral composition of Martian rocks, detecting organic compounds in them. We wrote about the progress of the MARS 2020 mission on our blog on the anniversary of the landing of the Perseverance rover on the surface of the red planet.

But that’s not the end! ALTEN specialists are involved in the MMX-MARS: The Mars Moon eXploration mission, coordinated by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency). Its goal is to reach the surface of one of the Martian moons, Phobos, as early as 2025. Like Perseverance, the MMX lunar rover is designed to examine the mineral bed and soil of Phobos and then return the results to Earth for laboratory testing. Scientists hope to obtain some answers about the history of the Solar System and the origins of life on our planet.

With over 20 years of experience in space engineering, ALTEN teams were involved in all stages of work on the construction of the MMX rover, designed by the French National Space Research Center (CNES), with the support of the German Space Agency (DLR). ALTEN engineers supported its assembly, integration and testing, and also worked on solar generator integration and final functional tests, including hardware validation in the expected high and low temperature ranges to which the rover may be exposed during the mission. The tests were conducted at the Toulouse Space Center in France.

The origin of Mars’ moons, Phobos and Deimos, has been a subject of dispute among scientists for a long time. Recent research suggests that they may have been formed as a result of a collision that was responsible for the birth of the red planet about 4.5 billion years ago. This would explain their composition, similar to Mars’, and their specific, circular orbit. We hope that the MMX mission will provide answers to these questions.