Portugal leads the consortium that will test technology to explore … – publico

                 

                         
                     

                 

 
                         

A European consortium led by a Portuguese multinational, will test in Svalbard, Norway, a new technology for exploration of planets, that part of sensor communication networks used to monitor the environment to its surface.

                     

                         The Tekever, Portuguese multinational responsible for basic technology, plans to start the first tests on the ground of sensor networks at the end of September or in early October, after obtaining the permits and if weather conditions permit, told Lusa the administrator Ricardo Mendes company.

In the Svalbard Islands in the Arctic Circle, “the researchers will find upcoming weather conditions existing in space,” the company said.

sensor networks, including heat and light, will in future collect the largest possible amount of data from the surface of a planet like Mars, or even the moon, process them and transmit them to a satellite in its orbit, which the ship to Earth.

In practice, the technology used is proposed to help prepare manned missions to other planets that may be scheduled by providing as much information about these planets, said Ricardo Mendes.

The project, designated as SWIPE (Space Wireless sensor networks for Planetary Exploration, sensor wireless networks to planetary exploration), cost two million euros, more than half supported by EU funds.

The administrator Tekever believes that with a “much lower cost” to a robot as Curiosity, exploring the surface of Mars, the SWIPE can expand the study of the atmosphere to the surface of a planet.

Unlike the robot of the US space agency NASA, a ‘device with many sensors on board “that will explore Mars as you look through the surface, the SWIPE requires communication networks of tiny sensors spread over various parts of the surface the world, added the official.

The European consortium are still part of the universities of Rome La Sapienza in Italy and Leicester in the UK, as well as engineering companies, telecommunications, security and aerospace defense France and Spain.

The SWIPE will be presented at the International Astronautical Congress 66, to be held 12-16 October in Israel.

The Tekever ever produced, for the European Space Agency ESA, technology that enables communication between satellites.