Charlie, an Airbus-built rover prototype in Tabernas, traveled more than 60 meters (about 197 feet) autonomously on the sixth day of a field exercise, with less than 1% navigation error, the European Space Agency (ESA) reported on October 6. The terrestrial rehearsal prepared teams for rover operations on ExoMars Rosalind Franklin.
Charlie's autonomous drive covered more than 60 meters
ESA attributed the day-six result to Luc Joudrier, Rosalind Franklin rover operations lead. Across eight days of rover travel, Charlie covered 220 meters (about 722 feet). The broader test campaign lasted 20 days.
A Tabernas rehearsal for Rosalind Franklin operations
Charlie was a prototype built by Airbus, not the rover intended to land on Mars. ESA said it ran the same guidance, navigation and control software intended for Rosalind Franklin. The field exercise took place in the Tabernas desert in southeastern Spain; ESA places it in September.
The earlier coverage of Charlie's Tabernas trial introduced the prototype; ESA's report gives the day-six measurement and the wider campaign results.
How the remote science team planned each drive
Around 100 scientists and engineers took part. The science team worked from the Rover Operations Control Centre (ROCC) in Turin, Italy, about 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) from Tabernas. They used rover images, subsurface radar and spectral analysis to assess possible investigation sites and prepare plans, while field operators coordinated with the control team.
The exercise represented PanCam and CLUPI cameras, the Enfys spectrometer and WISDOM ground-penetrating radar. When remote data made a slope look steep, the team used a digital elevation map to assess it and found the slope was gentle. Rain interrupted testing on another day, prompting the team to adapt its plans.
ESA's plans for the next stages
ESA said it plans a more complex field test for summer 2027, with challenges involving the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. The agency described Rosalind Franklin's Mars landing as planned for 2030.
