Idéfix weighs 25 kg and measures 41.5 cm, but it is not a small dog. The National Center for Space Studies (Cnes) presented this Tuesday the new Franco-German rover that will serve to discover the surface of Phobos, a moon of the planet Mars.
The name Dogmatix was obviously not chosen at random. With the agreement of the Albert René editions, it was decided to give this name to the device, a nickname that “corresponds perfectly to the role of explorer that the rover will have to fulfill (…) it will undoubtedly show enough talent and tenacity to face all the challenges,” the agency says on Twitter.
But the history of this title is even more complex, as indicated in the figaro Stéphane Mary, Cnes project manager:
Another strong point, the worldwide recognition of the comic strip and the sympathy immediately attracted by the name Dogmatix. A good way to simply draw public attention to the machine and its mission.
Takeoff in September 2024
The microwave-sized rover, born from the cooperation between the French and German space agencies, will be transported to the vicinity of the Red Planet by the Japanese Mars Moon eXplorer (MMX) mission. The takeoff of the device is expected for the month of September 2024. All with the hope that the Japanese launcher does not experience the same malfunction as last March.
Once the mission reaches the vicinity of Phobos, a journey that should take ten months, MMX will station itself around this moon to study its surface from afar. After a mapping time, Idéfix will be dropped 50 meters above the ground. Although it may “seem like a lot”, taking into account the lower gravity in the place, it is equivalent to a fall of 10 centimeters on earth, according to Stéphane Mary.
At the very least, Asterix will have to spend 100 days on Phobos before he can expect to be returned to the blue planet. At the latest, the MMX mission should return to Earth in 2028. During its visit, the robot equipped with a very high-definition camera (4K) will be able to visit the seams of the still unknown star. An extremely slow and tedious journey, as Dogmatix can only move at a maximum speed of one millimeter per second. But his presence serves to pave the way for a more global MMX task, bringing samples back to Earth that could, as a bonus, contain traces of Martian soil.
Source: BFM TV
