ESA will make the project to send the samples from Mars to Earth

News24xx.com - The European Space Agency (ESA) is working with the Airbus company to develop a cruiser which will be sent to Mars. This was announced by the Minister of Science of the United Kingdom, Sam Gyimah. These explores will be able to send samples of rock, dust, and soil from Mars to Earth, which has never been done before.

Currently, on Mars there are two NASA's explorers named Opportunity and Curiosity. However, both are only capable of sending data to researchers on earth, not sending samples.

Nevertheless, both have exceeded the expectations of its missionary journey. They've been exploring Mars for years, and allow humans to learn a lot about Mars and its history.

According to the British government, later this new cruiser will take a sample previously collected by NASA's cruiser, then move it to another vehicle. The vehicle will take the sample into the orbit, then the sample will be transferred again to a spacecraft that will return to earth.

Quoted from Slashgear, Sam said Airbus earned a contract worth of 3.9 million pounds (about IDR 74 billion) from ESA. With the budget, Airbus will develop a Mars rover that will continue what NASA has started.

More details about the contract, including when the project will begin and when the cruises will be launched are not published. However, samples from Mars certainly will not arrive on earth until at least a few years ahead.

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