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Mars ‘Curiosity’ rover equipped with Polish sensors

PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle 06.08.2012 11:10
NASA’s ‘Curiosity’ rover which successfully landed on Mars, Monday morning, is fitted with infrared detectors manufactured by the Polish VIGO System company.

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This artist's concept depicts the moment immediately after NASA's Curiosity rover touches down onto the Martian surface: photo - EPA/NASA/JPL

“We are an official supplier of components to NASA [and] we feel great satisfaction that we have supplied limited help in achieving this ambitious mission,” Mirosław Grudzień director of VIGO System SA, a company based in Warsaw, has said.

“Uncooled MCT infrared detectors developed at VIGO System have been chosen for use in a tunable laser spectrometer instrument designed to acquire information about the Martian environment during the Mars Science Laboratory mission,” says the company web site.

The sensors will be part of the rover’s search for signs of life on the Red Planet, particularly carbon, after the vehicle, the size of a small family saloon car, touched down on the surface of the planet this morning.

Curiosity, launched eight months ago, travelled the 566 million kilometers between Earth and Mars at 17 times the speed of sound.

The 2.5 billion USD mission, launched on 26 November 20111 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, comes aims to analyze samples of soil, rocks and atmosphere on the spot and beam results back to Earth. (pg)

Source: TVN 24/Reuters

tags: Mars, Science
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