The robot that NASA will send to Mars will include among its scientific instrumentation the meteorological station Rems, designed and manufactured in Spain by the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) and the space company Crisa.

The planetary rover Curiosity forms part of NASA’s space mission “Mars Science Laboratory”, whose main objective is to explore the surface of the planet Mars, and which is expected to begin operating in August of 2012.

This robot will be a complete mobile laboratory, loaded with complex scientific instruments that will be used to analyze the inhabitability of the red planet. Among all the devices that form part of Curiosity, the meteorological station “Rems” stands out, as the first instrument on board a NASA mission that is completely designed and manufactured in Spain.

Rems is a complete and very compact meteorological station: it weighs less than one and a half kilos and is able to measure relative humidity, pressure, air temperature, ground temperature, the speed and direction of the wind and ultraviolet radiation. All these features are key for the main objective of the space mission, and in order to put in context the results obtained by other equipment on board that will be sampling data such as the composition and quantity of minerals in the soil, the atmosphere, radiation on the surface, etcetera.

Rems is already installed on the Curiosity, and is being submitted to multiple tests at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Its launch is planned for November , 2011.