Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

Re:Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship' by ClumsyPilot on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @08:36AM (#23985942)

I am no expert, but I can imagine there are many kinds of laboratory equipment that is way too heavy to pit on a rover, perhaps mass spectrometers, etc.

Biological wxperiments is a big one. There is kind of outstanding question of perclorates in martian soil and its toxicity to earth organisms, plants, etc.

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Re:Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship' by ta8594505930 on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @09:34AM (#23986457)

The mars rover does have a spectrometer. It's called ChemCam [1], it uses a laser to vaporize a small amount of matter and them captures the spectrographs of the resulting plasma with a camera. That doesn't take away from your point, but it is a cool piece of equipment.

[1] https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/spacecraft/instruments/chemcam/

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