IT·Science Talk

The IDEFIX rover is my favourite part of the MMX story

Everyone is talking about the 10 grams of dust, but from the GONOM post the part I love is IDEFIX, the little French-German rover that will drive across Phobos to check the surface before MMX lands.

Think about how strange that environment is. Phobos has gravity so weak that a wheel can push you off the ground if you are careless. Driving there is not like driving on Mars or the Moon. So the rover is not only science, it is also a scout, telling the mission where it is safe to touch down.

And the name is a perfect joke, Idéfix is the little dog in Astérix, who follows Obélix everywhere. A tiny companion following the big probe. I explained this to my children and now they want to watch the cartoons.

Also nice to see Japan, France and Germany working together while the US mission was cancelled. International cooperation still works sometimes.