LONDON (Alliance News) - SCISYS PLC said Tuesday that it has signed a contract with Airbus Defence and Space Ltd to deliver rover vehicle visual localisation flight software for the European Space Agency's 2018 mission to Mars.
SCISYS supplies bespoke software systems, IT based solutions and support services to the Media Broadcast, Space, Government and Defence and Environment sectors.
The company said the contract is valued at EUR2 million, with the significant majority of the contract value to be recognised in the current and forthcoming accounting periods up to early 2017.
Under the terms of the contract, the company's VISLOC software will be responsible for self-localising and navigating the rover on the Mars surface and is therefore an essential part of the overall software system.
"Over the past years our Space Robotics team has gained significant experience and developed technical capabilities which are leading in Europe. This combined with our onboard software track record helped position ourselves to successfully compete for this contract," said Dr Horst Wulf, Divisional Director Space of SCISYS.
The European Space Agency established the ExoMars programme to investigate the Martian environment and to demonstrate new technologies paving the way for a future Mars sample return mission in the 2020s. As part of ExoMars ESA will in 2018 launch, land and operate a robotic rover to explore the planet.
Shares in the software company were Tuesday trading 0.33% higher at 91.30 pence per share shortly after the market open.
By Alice Attwood; aliceattwood@alliancenews.com; @AliceAtAlliance
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