A geological digging device, known as ‘Chomik’ (hamster) and designed in Poland will be on board the Russian Phobos Sample Return mission to one of the moons orbiting planet Mars.

Work on the equipment has just started at the Space Mechatronics and Robotics laboratory at the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Scheduled to take off in 2011, the ‘hamster’ will ’“bite” into the surface of Phobos, the larger of two moons circling Mars and chew off specimens to take back to Earth.

The collected material will be placed in a special container that will fit in a re-entry capsule.

Polish researchers will also participate in the work of an international team that will analyse the specimens brought back from space.

The Phobos mission was initially to start in 2007 but new plans have delayed it until 2011. The launch vehicle Zenit will land a probe on the Martian moon in 2013. The probe is to remain there to conduct more detailed research of the Red Planet, while the re-entry capsule with the collected soil specimens is scheduled to land in Kazakhstan in 2014. (ek/pg)