A further £230,000 of funding has been awarded to studies
into experiments that could be built and flown to the
International Space Station (ISS), which could
potentially support future human exploration of space.
The £3 million from the UK Space Agency Aurora Science
programme, which is exploiting the data from robotic
exploration, including our major investment in ESA’s
ExoMars mission, will target questions of past and
present life on Mars, investigating the presence of water
and the geochemical environment as well as atmospheric
trace gases and their sources.
Science Minister, , said:
“Science enables and shapes the UK’s future in space
exploration. This government funding will play a vital
role in ensuring UK academics can continue to study the
secrets of our solar system, from the polar regions of
the Moon to the potential of life on Mars.
“Research and innovation are at the core of our
Industrial Strategy, and by investing in these types of
projects, we are reinforcing our position as a world
leader in these important and exciting areas.”
The £3 million has gone to 17 academics and individual
scientists working at UK research organisations. The
scientific objectives of the first mission in the Aurora
programme, ExoMars, are to understand Mars’s environment
and its atmosphere.
In addition, £230,000 of funding has been awarded to the
UK microgravity and space environments community in
academia and industry. Four proposals have been funded,
which will study concepts and designs for experiments
which will deliver high quality science on the ISS as
part of a national science programme.
British ESA astronaut Tim Peake was involved in many
experiments during his sixth-month mission on the ISS
from December 2015 to June 2016, including several with
contributions from UK scientists.
Libby Jackson, Human Spaceflight and Microgravity
Programme Manager at the UK Space Agency, said:
“Microgravity science in the UK has grown rapidly since
we joined the ISS programme back in 2012. Any future
mission to the ISS represents a really exciting
opportunity to build on this and to ensure that the UK
science community is properly placed to capitalise on the
research opportunities that such a flight would offer.”
The studies undertaken will address how high quality
science can be implemented within the constraints of the
ISS and provide an accurate cost for the full flight
experiment.
