"Where On Mars?"

Introducing "Where On Mars?": an interactive map visualisation of the ESA's ExoMars rover candidate landing sites.

Transcript

1. Nicolas Manaud, Oriol Boix, Andrew Hill, Carla Iriberri "Where should the ExoMars rover land?" European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 27 September – 02 October 2015 La Cité des Congrès, Nantes, France
2. WHAT IS IT? • "Where On Mars?" is an online interactive map of the ESA's ExoMars 2018 rover candidates landing site for the general public. • The project started as an ESA's ESAC Trainee Project done in close collaboration with the CartoDB team based in Madrid and New York. • CartoBD is an online free and commercial platform/tool to easily visualise and analyse data on a map (cartodb.com).
4. PROJECT OBJECTIVE To experiment the use of modern open source web mapping technologies applied to Planetary Science data and geospatial information. To increase public awareness of the ExoMars 2018 mission, and more generally of the scientific and robotic exploration of Mars. TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATIONAL
5. THE EXOMARS 2018 MISSION The rover will travel across the surface to search for signs of past and present life. It will collect samples with a drill and analyse them with next-generation instruments.
6. THE LANDING SITE SELECTION PROCESS ✓ 1 November 2013: A Landing Site Selection Working Group (LSSWG) was appointed to make recommendations to the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). ✓ 17 December 2013: Call for ExoMars 2018 Landing Site Selection
 8 landing sites were proposed by the scientific community ✓ 26-28 March 2014: 1st Landing Site Selection Workshop
 4 candidate landing sites were shortlisted for further investigation, both in term of scientific interest and engineering safety: Mawrth Vallis, Oxia Planum, Aram Dorsum, and Hypanis Vallis. ✓ 9-10 December 2014: 2nd Landing Site Selection Workshop • 20-21 October 2015: 3rd Landing Site Selection Workshop The objective of the meeting will be to go from the present four candidate landing sites to two final sites, of which one will later become the main site and one the backup. • October 2017: ESA will make the final decision based on LSSWG recommendation
7. THE INTERACTIVE MAP • It has been designed to guide you through the main scientific and engineering constraints for the selection of the ExoMars 2018 landing site. • It allows you to explore Mars and each candidate landing site using a selection of the same ESA and NASA planetary imagery data, and additional geospatial information used by the scientists involved in the selection process. • It relies on CartoDB and other open source mapping technologies for processing, storing, and visualising data on the web.
8. whereonmars.co
23. HOW TO CONTRIBUTE? • We hope that this project will continue as an open source and collaborative project. • Whether you are an outreach and education professional, science journalist, planetary scientist, a web developer, or simply like this project, you can contribute!
24. whereonmars.co @whereonmars