'Mars yard' to test European rover (BBC)
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
Airbus has built a giant sand pit in Stevenage to mimic the surface of Mars.
The indoor terrain, about the size of a basketball court, will be used to test systems on the rover that Europe will send to the Red Planet in 2018.
ExoMars, as it is known, will be a six-wheeled robot tasked with finding signs of past or present life.
The UK division of Airbus Defence and Space will assemble the rover from parts built across member states of the European Space Agency (Esa).
But it has the specific role also of developing the vehicle's autonomous navigation system.
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more (incl. video): http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26670054
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