Swiss camera to launch to Mars

Media releases, information for representatives of the media Media Relations (E) A camera designed and built at the Center of Space and Habitability (CSH) of the University of Bern was launched with the ExoMars space on 14 March and started its journey to Mars. The instrument will obtain stereo images of the surface in colour at a resolution of better than 5 m. CaSSIS (Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System) has been developed by a team led by the University of Bern. It is scheduled to be launched on a PROTON rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:31 (CET) on Monday 14 March 2016. It will be carried by the European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO). The launch will send the spacecraft towards an encounter with Mars in October 2016. CaSSIS is a high resolution imaging system designed to complement the data acquired by the other payload on TGO and other Mars orbiters while also enhancing our knowledge of the surface of Mars. The camera is a cooperation between the University of Bern, the Astronomical Observatory of Padua, and the Space Research Center in Warsaw with the support of local industries and funded by the Swiss Space Office (SSO), the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Polish Space Agency (POLSA).