Next stop: Mars

With this exciting event, the CCCB begins its journey to Mars, broadcasting live some of the historic moments of the NASA Mars 2020 (NASA) mission: the landing of the Perseverance rover on the planet with the aim of collecting samples from the surface of the red planet to look for clues to past life.

From the CCCB, we’ll be providing live coverage by space exploration experts, offering information about the mission, following the “seven minutes of terror” when the rover enters Martian atmosphere and loses all contact with the outside, experiencing the live reactions of NASA control room technicians, and talking to researchers from NASA and from the CSIC’s Centre for Astrobiology who have taken part in the mission.

The event will take place online and be broadcast live on the CCCB’s website and YouTube channel.

 

Taking part in the broadcast:

Guillem Anglada, researcher working in Astrophysics and Space Sciences (Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya - IEEC). His field of study are the precise techniques of detecting and characterizing terrestrial expoplanets. In 2016, Nature journal considered him one of the world’s ten best scientists.

Mariona Badenas, Barcelona astrophysicist specializing in exoplanets. She is studying her PhD in Planetary Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
 
Ignasi Casanova, planetary scientist and lecturer at UPC. He has worked at NASA, been an advisor to the European Space Agency, and worked on various missions to the Moon and Mars.

The event will be conducted by Miquel Sureda, physicist and Doctor of Space Engineering. He is a lecturer and member of the Space Science and Technology Research Group, the UPC and the Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya, and a science writer.
 

During the broadcast, there will be live connections with other experts involved in NASA’s space mission to Mars:

Adriana Ocampo, Colombian planetary geologist and Science Program Manager at NASA.

Juan Ángel Vaquerizo, astrophysicist and scientific adviser Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA)

Jorge Pla, researcher at the Centre for Astrobiology (CSIC-INTA, associated with NASA Astrobiology Institute) and associate researcher at the Space Science Institute (SSI) in Boulder, Colorado. He was involved in the construction of one of the components of the Perseverance rover.