space

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Synopsis

Robotic Space Probes have opened a whole new frontier for Mankind. We will follow the construction, journey, and eventual arrival of the two biggest Probe missions ever to be launched into our heavens. Both reached their destinations in 2004 – the Mars Exploration Rovers were sent to explore Mars in our planetary backyard, whilst the Cassini Huygens was to travel across our vast solar system to the ringed planet Saturn and it mysterious moon Titan. Probes come in different forms. Some are built to just fly great distances past planets and moons collecting data, some are designed to orbit like giant satellites, and some are programmed to actually land and probe the surface and atmosphere of another planet.

Part 1:

NASA’s ambitious plans to go to Mars with 2 large rovers were given the go ahead in the year 2000. The Missions Principle investigator and designer, only, the year before, in 1999, NASA had lost a Mars Orbiter and Lander, due to an embarrassing mix up between miles and kilometres. They had only 3 years to build and launch the 2 Rovers. The design had to be perfect, failure wasn’t an option. To help protect the rover’s delicate instruments on board he wheels have a unique spiral pattern to absorb shock and the spokes have to function in the ultra low temperatures of minus 200C Fahrenheit encountered on Mars. Professor Steve Squyres dedicated the last 16 years of his life to this mission impossible

Part 2:

In the summer of 2003, the 2 rovers, now named spirit’ and ‘opportunity’, were launched, ‘but their journey to mars wasn’t without danger. A few months in they encountered one of the biggest solar storms in history. Their next hurdle was to land on mars, and to do this the rovers used airbags to protect them. After months of testing them in giant wind tunnels, they finally decided on a simple design, to give the airbag an inner tube – much like a bicycle tire. The Entry, descent and landing phase is one of the most dangerous parts of the mission, temperatures reach 1000 degrees centigrade on entry, and the probes must slow down from 12,000 miles per hour to just 900 miles per hour in just 2 minutes. Will the probes survive?

Part 3:

Amazingly both rovers land safely on Mars and the team get the first panoramic images back of Mars. It is now the job of the rovers to navigate the craters and dust storms of mars and explore the planets geology. The ultimate goal is to look for signs of past water in the rocks, and in 2004 the rovers found intriguing spherical objects named ‘Mars Blueberries’, which might be just the evidence they were looking for.

Part 4:

It had been known for decades that the moon Titan had an atmosphere, four times denser than earth’s and this had long fascinated scientists. But Titan is much further away than Mars, and resides near the dangerous Saturn rings, so sending a probe there was going to be a difficult task. In 1990, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was born. It would be the most ambitious mission ever to our outer solar system. On 15th of October 1997, after years of construction, the Cassini-Huygens probe is ready for launch and to begin the journey to Saturn and its moon Titan, which would take 7 long years.

Part 5:

During its journey, they discovered a huge problem, the Cassini Orbiter and the Huygens probe were not communicating with each other. Over the next 2 years engineers painstakingly worked on solving this problem, the solution was to change the distance between the orbiter and the probe, so they were able to speak to each other. On June 30h, 2004 Cassini entered orbit around Saturn, negotiating its treacherous rings and on Christmas Day 2004 the Huygens probe started it’s descent towards Titan and a few hours later images of Titan’s were seen for the first time. Over the next 3 years, scientists are confident that the moon will reveal the chemical precursors to complex life, perhaps like the environment similar to that on earth 4 billion years ago.

ASPECT RATIO 4.3
MAIN SOUNDTRACK English Stereo
DISC FORMAT DVD 5
REGION 1 NTSC
CLASSIFICATION Exempt
NOTE Not available for shipment outside the USA

Runtime: 54 minutes