Scisys wins Mars rover software contract

Scisys has won a €3.7m contract from Thales to help design software for the Mars rover vehicle as part of the European Space Agency's 2020 scientific mission.

In its second involvement with the ExoMars programme, the AIM-listed company will work with Thales Alenia Space Italia on the design, coding and verification of the Rover mission management software instruments layer (MMS-IL) for the 2020 Mars Rover & Surface Platform mission.

A European rover is scheduled to be launched and land on Mars by 2021, which will be the first mission to combine the capability of moving a rover across the surface of Mars with an in-depth scientific study.

Scisys said it expected the contract to be fully completed by 2021 and helped underpin its current financial guidance.

In October the ESA deployed its Schiaparelli Mars lander under the ExoMars mission, which although it lost radar signal as it landed was eventually declared a success.

Horst Wulf, director of Scisys' space division, said the software built under the new contract would be a key component to orchestrate the Rover instruments and deliver observations and analyses back to Earth.

"This is the second software component by Scisys for the ExoMars Rover, after the VISLOC contract announced earlier in 2015. The VISLOC software component will support the second objective of the mission - to move across the surface, providing sophisticated localisation and visualisation capabilities."

The ESA aims to land the Rover at a suitable site in order to drill down, find and collect samples of well-preserved organic material related to the very early history of Mars.