The Wellcome Trust biomedical research charity has agreed to help finance the mass spectrometer which is central to Beagle 2 and is being pioneered by the group at the Open University led by Beagle 2 Lead Scientist Professor Colin Pillinger.
The Trust is providing ¿2.6m to pay for construction of the miniature instrument and to investigate how the technology may be extended beyond that developed for a mission to Mars.
Professor Pillinger said “We are delighted that the Wellcome Trust has come on board. Not only will the additional research grant support the flight hardware but it will allow us to exploit possible spin-offs of an instrument designed for the rigours of working remotely on Mars for biomedical and clinical applications here on Earth”.
Dr Michael Dexter, Director of the Wellcome Trust added “This is beyond blue skies research and with such a voyage of discovery novel ideas are bound to emerge”
