Island link to Mars mission

Sat, 11 Aug 2012

The Isle of Man has been identified as having a link to the Curiosity Rover which just last week landed on Mars to begin an information gathering mission.

The rover was built in its entirety in California, however a number of the optics included in the vehicle where manufactured on the Island.

The overall aim of the mission is to ascertain if there is water on Mars, with the locally made optics part of the laser device which will test rocks for indicators of this.

Dr Helmut Kessler of CVI Optics based in Onchan produced the components for the rover which is now over 350 million miles away.