ExoMars rover comes out of the ‘oven’

The Rosalind Franklin rover that will search for life on Mars has completed an important bakeout to help clean the rover from organic molecules from Earth. The rover sat inside a vacuum chamber for 120 hours at 35ºC at the Thales Alenia Space facility in Rome, Italy. The temperature is enough to sublimate hidden contaminants generated by the off-gassing of some of the rover’s internal parts, such as small bits of glue. The goal is to reduce as much as possible any contamination signature of Earth origin, to allow a clean detection of organic compounds on Mars. An additional analysis following the bakeout will be completed at a later date. That is, the rover’s Mars Organics Molecule Analyser (MOMA), one of the instruments inside the rover’s analytical laboratory ultra-clean zone that will be used to determine if signs of life are present in the martian soil, will determine the chemical background in the rover’s laboratory by performing a measurement using an empty oven. Once on Mars, MOMA’s tiny ovens will