17 Apr 2015

The Italian instrument at the "heart" of the ExoMars 2016 lander has been transferred from Padua to the Thales facility in Cannes. Official handover scheduled for 4 May

Roughly the size of a shoe box, and weighing just over 4 kg with batteries included, DREAMS (Dust characterization, Risk assessment and Environment Analyzer on the Martian Surface) nonetheless contains extremely sophisticated instruments designed to take high accuracy "in situ" measurements of atmospheric parameters on Mars.
The payload is at the "heart" of the EDM Schiaparelli lander in the ExoMars 2016 mission, and has successfully completed trials before beginning its voyage to the red planet.

The instrument was first envisaged years ago, when ESAdecided to hold a tender following negotiations conducted by the Italian Space Agency to select the scientific payload for the EDM module. DREAMS won the tender, thanks to a brand new team led by the ASI Program Manager and including CISAS,INAF/OAC and several international partners.

Yesterday morning, four years after being selected by ESA, DREAMS left CISAS inPadua, where it was developed and built in collaboration with INAF-OAC and ASI, for the Thales Group facilities in Cannes. It arrived during the evening, but the official handover - after documentation checks scheduled for 30 April - will not take place until the facilities have been prepared after 4 May, as Dreams can only be opened in a controlled environment (ISO 7HC clean room).
The formal delivery and handover from CISAS to ASI and from ASI to ESA/TAS will take place after all the necessary checks, including an incoming inspection and stand alone test (a reduced function test to ensure the instrument is working correctly).
The event will be attended by all the main figures involved. ASI will be represented byRaffaele Mugnolo (PM), Ernesto Marchetti (PA) and Simone Pirrotta (Eng.); CISAS-University of Padua by Stefano Debei, Carlo Bettanini (PM) and Alessio Aboudan(Eng.); and INAF-OAC by instrument PI Francesca Esposito, along with TM Cesare Molfese and John R. Brucato, who was in charge of the Planetary Protection aspects.

DREAMS FM will ultimately be integrated in the EDM Schiaparelli after the formal handover, presumably at the end of May.
In Padua on 9 April, speaking outside the "Visioni Spaziali"lecture in the Aula Magna of Palazzo del Bo', ASI PresidentRoberto Battiston commented that: "Even though formal delivery has not yet taken place, this is a really important and delicate step in the ExoMars timetable".
"I am glad that we got to discuss it in such an historic and significant place. I found it very moving to hold a lecture in the same room where Galileo taught", he added.

Description of the instrument
The ESA tender for constructing sophisticated space instruments designed to characterize atmospheric parameters on Mars was held four years ago. The instrument will measure aspects such as pressure, relative humidity, temperature, wind speed, atmospheric transparency and electrical fields.

All the sensors will be controlled independently by a sophisticated electronics system and an "intelligent" software which will guide all the measurements and preliminary analyses, before transmitting them to Earth, working in an environment with surface temperatures ranging from -110 to +27 °C during one Martian day (although the sensors have been tested up to +70 °C).
DREAMS is part of ExoMars, a joint ESA-ROSCOMOSprogram, which includes two missions: ExoMars 2016, involving an Orbiter and a Lander (EDM) which, in addition to scientific activities, will be testing the European technological ability to "land" on a planet; and ExoMars 2018, with an ESA Rover, designed to search for traces of life on Mars and test navigation systems, surface mobility and underground access technology (using a drill made in Italy, similar to the one used on the Rosetta Lander (Philae).
This technological challenge will see Italy playing a key role, thanks to ASI's contribution and support, as well as being an example of collaboration between the academic, research and business (SME) worlds. It is also the result of an international collaboration between ASI, which funded the project, CISAS and INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte, along with European partners: Latmos (France), the Finnish Meteorological Institute (Finland), the Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial (Spain), the University of Oxford (UK) and an SME in central Italy (TEMIS).
All this has made it possible to complete the instrumentation in an extremely short time for a space research project: from kick-off in July 2011 to delivering the flight model in April 2015.