For the past month, a sterile vacuum chamber at the University of Guelph has served as a stand-in for the surface of Mars
Scientists needed to mimic the thin Martian atmosphere to conduct realistic tests on a new piece of space hardware that represents Canada's next major contribution to the exploration of the Red Planet.
The ingenious device, known as an Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), is smaller than a pop can, but it accurately measures the composition of soil and rock samples - data that may eventually help to unlock the secret of whether Mars ever has or ever could support life.
If everything goes according the plan, the finished version of the device will be attached to the robotic arm of a six-wheeled U.S. rover that will be launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., next year and land on Mars in 2010.
Similar devices have been part of earlier rover missions. But the Canadian-built hardware will be the most sophisticated APXS unit yet sent to Mars.
"It's better, faster and more precise," said Ralf Gellert, an assistant professor at the University of Guelph and the scientist overseeing Canada's part in the U.S.-led space venture.
The new rover, called the Mars Science Laboratory, will be huge - measuring 2.8 metres (nine feet) in length and weighing 775 kilograms (1,700 pounds). That makes it twice as long and about four times as heavy as the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity that continue to roam the rust-coloured Martian landscape.
The massive rover, jam-packed with a payload of scientific instruments from a variety of countries, will be searching for signs of Martian microbial life - either past or present.
"If you have more instruments, you have less time per instrument and therefore we had to make improvements to fit into the more hectic schedule of scientific investigations," Dr. Gellert said.
He noted that previous versions of the APXS often required eight to 10 hours to analyze one sample. The new model should be able to do the job in two or three hours.
Dr. Gellert certainly has the expertise to make those instrument changes. He used to work at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany, where the APXS units for previous Mars rovers were designed and tested.
"My former boss, Rudi Rieder, is often called the grey-haired wizard of the APXS," said Dr. Gellert, who is a physicist by training. "I was more or less his actual hands and put together the electronics, wrote the software and did the calibrations to make it work."
However, Dr. Rieder retired in 2005 and the Max Planck Institute decided to close its cosmic chemistry division. As a result, Dr. Gellert needed a new academic base if he was going to carry on the APXS tradition.
And that's when Iain Campbell, a University of Guelph professor, stepped in.
Dr. Campbell is a leading expert on the interpretation of APXS data and had worked closely with the Max Planck team on previous Mars missions.
He helped Dr. Gellert secure a post at Guelph. At the same time, the two scientists approached the Canadian Space Agency to finance the development of a new, improved APXS system for the next generation of Mars rovers.
The CSA agreed to put up the $10-million for the project. MDA, the same company that built the iconic Canadarm for the space shuttle, won the contract to fabricate the piece of high-tech hardware.
And now, Dr. Gellert and fellow researchers at Guelph are frantically running tests on an engineering model so that the real device will be ready for launch next year.
