Presentation of the MMX Rover to Chancellor Scholz and President Macron
On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron presented themselves with the MMX rover on January 22, 2023. France and Germany work closely together in space. Many joint projects between the space centers are scheduled for the coming years. For example, the MMX rover, a joint project of DLR and the French space agency CNES (Centre national d'études spatiales), is scheduled to land on Phobos, an icy moon of Mars. The Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics is the DLR project leader.
The formation of the two Martian moons Phobos and Deimos has not yet been explained. In order to unravel this mystery, the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission of the Japanese space agency JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) to the two moons Phobos and Deimos is expected to start in 2024. On board will be the Franco-German rover, which will explore the surface of Phobos, which is about 27 kilometers in size, in detail. It was developed in just four years by a total of nine DLR institutes under the project leadership of the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics in close and fruitful cooperation with CNES. If the landing is successful, it will be the first European rover on an alien celestial body.
The selection of the MMX rover as one of the highlights of the Franco-German collaboration underlines the importance of the project and generates a further boost of motivation for the development team on the home stretch before delivery of the rover to the Japanese space agency JAXA.
