Bern University has sent along a spectrometer to analyse the comet's tail. In 2014, Esa's Rosetta probe should fly by the Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet. Swiss know-how is also in use on missions further afield. Maxon's equipment has since made a return trip to Mars, helping two rovers explore the planet's surface. In 1997, the American Sojourner robot was powered with motors from Maxon, a company in canton Obwalden. The demands of a growing human population often clash with the needs of nature, a fact that regularly sparks political debate in Switzerland.īut even before 2003 Swiss technology had made it to Mars. The Swiss Alps are beautiful, but are they biodiverse? Unfortunately the Beagle 2 probe crashed on the red planet. Space-X, a Neuchâtel company, managed to design three cameras weighing less than 100 grams for Esa's last Mars mission. Lean and mean is the criterion for space equipment. This helps cut launch costs substantially. The first fairings were made of aluminium, but today composite materials two-thirds the weight are used to build them. Despite competition from Boeing since 1997, Contraves remains the favoured supplier, and both the Russians and the Americans are interested in its products. Built by Zurich firm Contraves, the fairings play a vital role in protecting payloads and ensuring the stability of the rocket during the first few minutes of flight. Another Swiss product featured on spacecraft since 1974 are the payload fairings used by Esa's Ariane launcher programme. An instrument used in space has to withstand such testing, as failure is not an option, especially for unmanned vehicles. The watches had to pass Nasa's stringent tests, including handling vibrations generated by the Apollo rocket during takeoff, temperature differences of up to 200 degrees Celsius and even a liquid oxygen bath. It was a long journey – even before the trip to the Moon.
Armstrong, the first to set foot on the surface, left his watch in the cabin to replace a broken clock, leaving it to Aldrin to take his Omega for a moonwalk. American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were wearing Swiss Omega watches when they touched down. On July 20, 1969, Switzerland landed on the Moon. Amidst all the Cold War posturing, Switzerland convened in Geneva the first intergovernmental meetings that would lead to the creation of Europe's own space programme, managed later by the European Space Agency (Esa).
In a few months' time, Yuri Gagarin was to orbit Earth, and President Kennedy would announce a moon landing by the end of the decade. Three years earlier, the Russians had launched the first satellite, and now the Americans had responded with the first telecommunications and weather satellites. Swiss industry and research institutes have regularly supplied parts and instruments for the spacecraft and probes that travel across the solar system.īy 1960, the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States had well and truly extended into space.
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