A Belfast scientist is in charge of the 'Mars Express' launch next week. He tells Dick Ahlstrom about the project.
There are a lot of nervous European Space Agency staff preparing for next week's launch of a satellite bound for Mars. Chief among them is a Belfast-born scientist and engineer who is managing activities on the ground and sharing responsibility for the probe's seven-month trip to the Red Planet. "You have to have nerves of steel," says Michael McKay from his mission-control centre, in Darmstadt, Germany. "You also have to be able to pick a good team."
McKay is the ground segment manager for the agency's Mars Express satellite mission and one of two flight-operations directors who will monitor its progress after launch. "It is really hairy for the first hour after launch and then for the last hours as it approaches Mars. That is when so many things can go wrong," he says.
Mars Express is actually two satellites in one. The Express orbiter will circle the Red Planet for two years, collecting data on the Martian atmosphere, surface and features up to five kilometres underneath the surface. It will provide communications links to the satellite's second segment, the Beagle 2 lander, which will parachute to the surface to begin a six-month search for signs of present or past life.
As ground segment manager, McKay is responsible for the people and systems that will keep tabs on Mars Express in advance of lift-off from Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, at 6.45 p.m. Irish time on Monday. "We had to build the mission-control system, everything from the ground stations in Australia to South America," says McKay. This included putting together computer systems and communications equipment, the hardware and software to make it all work and, of course, the flight-control team that will talk to Mars Express as it makes its way towards a rendezvous with Mars on Christmas Day - "and making sure it all comes together on schedule and within budget," he adds.
As a flight-operations director, McKay then helps to provide 24-hour cover for the first few weeks of the satellite's jump into Earth orbit and departure for Mars. There is almost no room for error. Mars reaches its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years on August 28th. Mars Express is taking advantage of this proximity, but the probe has to launch within a day or two either side of Monday in order to reach Mars as planned. Any slip-ups and that's it, says McKay.
The launch team trains to be able to handle any eventuality on the day by running demanding flight-simulation programs. "Today we have our final launch simulation, with lots of nasty contingencies in it," McKay said last week. "No matter what gets thrown at them on the night, we know how to recover the mission and save the spacecraft."
Even after lift-off, getting Mars Express safely into orbit around a planet about 80 million kilometres away is a huge challenge. "We have to fly to Mars to within a metre's precision."
McKay relinquishes control of the spacecraft at the far end of its journey, just after it has been injected into its Martian orbit after releasing Beagle 2.
McKay has worked for the European Space Agency for 20 years. He studied aero engineering at Queen's University Belfast, then worked at a space agency centre in the Netherlands before returning to Queen's to study high-energy astrophysics and X-ray astronomy. He returned to the Continent, this time to the agency's mission-control centre in Darmstadt, and got involved in research.
"After that, I got bitten by the operations bug," he says. It began his long involvement in overseeing satellites launches and flights.
He lives in Darmstadt with his Swedish wife and three young children and has no intention of leaving. "It is a very, very unique environment that is full of challenges," he says.