PUPILS at Hardenhuish School in Chippenham had the chance to get up close to a Mars Rover during its visit to the school last month.

The school’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) club were introduced to the test model, known as Indie, following a visit by Cristina Rodriguez, technical lead from the Space Division at SCISYS UK.

She talked about software she has designed for three satellites that are orbiting Earth at the moment and Indie’s collision avoidance algorithm.

Pupils were also able to ask questions, including about testing the robot in the Atacama Desert, the challenges of flying a robot to Mars and whether there is life on the Red Planet.

Ms Rodriguez said: “It takes an average of 13 minutes to communicate with Mars, so if Indie comes across a rock in its path, we didn’t want to wait over 26 minutes just to tell it to go around the rock.”