NASA postponed the mission to explore Mars

The US Aerospace Agency (NASA) yesterday decided to postpone the plan to launch the MSL probe on the Red Planet expected to take place next year, due to hardware problems and testing.

MSL self-propelled probe model.Photo: Webgis.

NASA will leave the launch of the MSL probe (short for the Mars Laboratory) by the end of 2011. The device will apply the latest technologies to discover whether there has ever been a Whether bacteria live on Red planet or not. The delay can cost an additional $ 400 million and the total cost for this mission will amount to $ 2 billion.

The launch date of the MSL was changed after project scientists and engineers conducted an assessment of the progress of the work in the past 3 months. NASA director Michael Griffin said: "Trying to fulfill the mission in 2009 will require us to accept too much risk, more than I think is appropriate for a mission of prime importance. ".

"Although the work effort has been mobilized to the maximum by many cases implemented by a dedicated group, progress in recent weeks has not been fast enough to address the technical challenges and intentions of the parts hard, " revealed director Charles Elachi, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Right and smart action at the moment is launching the ship in 2011".

The MSL will use technologies known for the first time to regulate its flight operations as it travels to Mars's atmosphere. It will drop autonomous probes on the surface of the planet by descending from a wire attached to a floating device.

The MSL self-propelled probe is designed to be able to travel a long distance on the rugged surface of the Red planet compared to previous equipment. It also incorporates 10 times the total number of devices compared to the devices of two previous NASA Mars probes Spirit and Opportunitiy Mars. Engineers are struggling with the installation of MSL's extremely complex motion mechanisms, including the propulsion motor, wheel turning and robot arm control.

Testing the MSL model in the laboratory.Photo: BBC.

Team leader of NASA scientists Ed Weiler said he had discussions with the European Space Agency about conducting joint missions to Mars in the future. He said that the huge cost for such missions would make cooperation impossible.

Earlier this month, NASA lost contact with the Phoenix Mars probe, which found evidence of water on Red Planet. This means the ship's 5-month mission ends. Phoenix suddenly stopped contacting after a dust storm that made it impossible to get sunlight to generate electricity.