Mars on the move at the Cité de l’espace

After two years of work, Martian Ground, located in the heart of the gardens of the Cité de l’espace, officially opens its doors to the public on April 5th. With 1.3 million euros invested, it is one of the largest immersive outdoor projects undertaken by Semeccel. The 900 m2 crater offers a venue as close to the reality as possible to address robotic space exploration to Mars, a key space issue today and for the coming decades.
Launched in 2019, the Martian Ground project demonstrates the ability of the Cité de l’espace to look ahead and be a sounding board for both the latest space news and long-term developments. While 2021 is considered « the Martian year » par excellence with the arrival of two state-of-the-art rovers on Martian ground (Zhurong and Perseverance), Mars exploration promises to focus attention for a long time to come, « if only in terms of preparation for the return to earth, in around ten years, of the samples that are currently being collected by Perseverance », says Jean-Claude Daredelet, Vice-President of Toulouse Métropole and president of Semeccel. The different current and future missions point to many other discoveries ahead. .

A 900 m2 crater
Located in the heart of the gardens of the Cité de l’espace, Martian Ground is designed to interpret and explain the latest news and developments about Mars to visitors through a totally immersive approach. The 900 m2 crater lined by 218 bleacher seats (including 6 seats for people with disabilities) protected from the elements is flanked by two geodesic domes housing the life-sized, motorized replicas of the Perseverance and Zhurong Martian rovers. Every effort is made to ensure that visitors have the most realistic immersive experience possible, in terms of the crater itself (type of rock, texture, colour…) and the accompanying outreach (experiments, educational content..). To this end, Martian Ground benefited from the partnership and expertise of the CNES, along with support from the Toulouse company, COMAT (stakeholder of Chemcam and Supercam cameras on board the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers) and the Occitanie Region, in collaboration with IRAP.

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Inauguration (from left to right ): Sylvestre Maurice, astrophysicist at IRAP (CNRS, Université Toulouse III Paul Sabatier, OMP) ; Thierry Cotelle, Regional Adviser, representative of Carole DELGA, President of the Occitanie Pyrénées-Méditerranée Region ; Jean-Claude Dardelet, President of Semeccel, Vice-President of Toulouse Métropole ; Lionel Suchet, Deputy Director General of CNES ; Benoît Moulas, President of COMAT ; Jean Baptiste Desbois, CEO of Semeccel . ©Manuel Huyn