In Toulouse, the Cité de l’espace will open a Martian site
To stick to the scientific news on the planet Mars, the Cité de l’espace, in Toulouse, opens a new space. A ground, in the open air, reconstituting the ground of Mars, will open at the end of March. Visitors could see the full-size models of the Perseverance and Zhurong rovers.
Rust-colored hills are already visible behind the Astralia building, in place of the playground. In a few weeks, at the end of March, the Cité de l’Espace will welcome the public in an immersive setting recreating the landscapes and especially the Martian soil. This is where the life-size models of Perseverance (NASA rover) and Zhurong (Chinese rover) will deploy, articulated and remote-controlled witnesses of the current robotic exploration on the planet Mars.
1.4 million euros of investment
The Martian field will accommodate 200 people in an outdoor amphitheater. This new permanent experiment, requiring an investment of 1.4 million euros, was designed in collaboration with the CNES (National Center for Space Studies), the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), the University of Toulouse III- Paul-Sabatier, IRAP (Astrophysics and Planetology Research Institute), OMP (Midi-Pyrénées Observatory) and with the support of COMAT, a company from Haut-Garonne (Flourens) involved in the delivery of components for missions martians.
“Our job is to popularize advances in knowledge and to talk about French space success. We talk a lot about Mars at the Cité de l’Espace (models of explorer rovers, Martian meteorite) because this planet represents one of the new frontiers of research and knowledge for humanity. We want to understand how this twin of the Earth has evolved,” explains Jean-Baptiste Desbois, Director General of the Cité de l’Espace.