蜜芽传媒

On Monday, the first part of the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission will blast off for the Red Planet. Two years from now, all being well, the Rover being built at Space City UK - the first Rover built outside America - will follow. It's goal is to travel across the Martian surface, drilling down into the ancient rock to look for the building blocks of life - or even life itself.

Paul Meacham is lead systems engineer on the Exomars Rover, and talked 5 live鈥檚 Sarah Brett through the controls.

The rover has 18 different motors, 鈥渨e could control them individually, but it makes it complicated, if it goes wrong it could pull the rover apart [鈥�] so we give it a body command,鈥� he said, explaining that the Rover then "does all the complicated stuff and works out the speed and angles it needs to go at鈥�.

The final version of The Exomars Rover will have to survive a violent ascent into space, coast for months through the vacuum of deep space, penetrate the Martian atmosphere and land, in one piece on the surface of another world.

If all that goes to plan, it will begin its mission on the Martian surface, 50 million miles from Earth, in temperatures below minus 50 centigrade, without any possibility of repair or replacement. The team at Space City UK get one shot to build the Rover, and they can't get a single thing wrong.

This clip was originally broadcast on 5 live Afternoon Edition on Thursday 10 March 2016

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