Artistic illustration of Dr. Rosalind Franklin by artist Tami Wicinas. Credit: Tami Wicinas

If Rosalind Franklin had had a birthday wish, she probably never would have dreamed of having her name roving on Mars.

As the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of the prominent scientist behind the discovery of the structure of DNA tomorrow, the ExoMars rover named after her prepares to leave her symbolic footprint on the Red Planet.

Rosalind Franklin with a microscope in 1955. Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer who contributed to unraveling the double helix structure of our DNA. She also made enduring contributions to the study of coal, carbon, and graphite. Credit: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

The robotic explorer will drill down to two meters into the Martian surface to sample the soil, analyze its composition and search for evidence of life buried underground. The mission is set for launch in 2022.

Rosalind Franklin was a leading crystallographer, who looked into how atoms are arranged. She produced the best double helix image of DNA strands with X-rays, and that transformed our world, leading to the biggest advance in biology in the past century DNA technology, says Jim Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, a national research center for life sciences in the UK.

She was not an undiscovered gem in her time, but a really influential scientist for her pioneering work in viruses. We regard her as the first structural biologist of viruses, adds Jim.

The scientists working to send ESAs Rosalind Franklin rover to Mars do not expect to find either DNA or viruses on our neighboring planet. DNA molecules and viruses are probably too fragile to last for four billion years on the ground, explains Jorge Vago, ESAs ExoMars project scientist.

But we hope that our rover will help write a new page in Mars exploration by allowing us to study organic molecules at depth, and perhaps find some suggestive traces of past life, says Jorge.

Rosalind Franklins legacy lives on a hundred years after her birth on planet Earth. Born on 25 July 1920, her family is touched by the worldwide recognition of her scientific work.

Many people have this vision of a solitary woman who was robbed of a Nobel Prize and was never acknowledged for helping discover the structure of the DNA helix, says her niece, also named Rosalind Franklin in her memory.

Rosalind meets Rosalind. After learning that the rover had been named in honor of her aunt the result of a public competition led by the UK Space Agency and also sharing the same name, Rosalind Franklin reached out to ESA, curious to learn more about the mission. Last month, she visited ESAs technical center in the Netherlands and is pictured here meeting the 1:1 scale model of the Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover for the first time. Credit: ESAG. Porter

She is committed to fighting off that conflictive image and representing her legacy bringing her out as a woman with a place in history. She inspires me to think that all of us, as individuals, have the power to make a difference.

The technical team behind the ExoMars spacecraft involves companies across more than 20 countries. This map highlights in red ESA Member and Cooperating States within Europe that are contributing to ExoMars. Participating countries outside Europe are listed at bottom right. Credit: ESAS. Poletti

Dr. Franklin was on a trip to America when she had difficulty fastening her skirt over her swollen stomach the first sign of an advanced ovarian cancer. She died two years later at 37 years old, working almost to the very end of her life.

A series of online talks and events, including a commemorative coin, is underway around the globe to celebrate the centenary of this woman of integrity who went after scientific discovery for the betterment of humankind, as her niece described her from her home in California, US.

Rosalind believes her aunt would have loved the ExoMars team spirit. The work of ESA engineers on the rover struck me they really do it for the results, not for themselves. This is what Rosalind Franklin was all about: commitment and dedication to science, she said after a visit to ESAs technical center in the Netherlands last year.

The scientist never conceived science as a race for awards.

As Mars exploration prepares for an international reawakening this year, the ExoMars mission that would have marked Dr Franklins centenary had to be postponed because tests to make all components of the spacecraft ready for the Mars adventure needed more time to complete.

On top of that, the coronavirus pandemic has halted the completion of several tests and verifications since March 2020.

ExoMars rover during environmental tests. Credit: Airbus

The fitness of the Rosalind Franklin rover to launch to the Red Planet in 2022 is currently being assessed during the qualification and acceptance review by ESA and dozens of industrial partners.

The rover successfully proved it can endure martian conditions during the environmental test campaign completed earlier this year in Toulouse, France.

The flight model awaits a more robust set of solar panels at Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy. In the same city is a full-scale model of Rosalind Franklin.

A team of engineers will simulate the roaming of the laboratory on wheels from the Rover Operations Control Centre (ROCC) at ALTEC, right next to one of Europes largest Mars yards.

While the ExoMars rover tunes up its gear and software for the challenges ahead, parachute tests are expected to resume in October in Oregon, US.

Further tests on the electrical and mechanical elements of the spacecraft will take place in Cannes, France, also in the autumn.

The ExoMars program is a joint endeavor between the Roscosmos State Corporation and ESA. Apart from the 2022 mission, it includes the Trace Gas Orbiter launched in 2016. The TGO is already both delivering important scientific results obtained by its own Russian and European science instruments and relaying data from NASAs Curiosity Mars rover and InSight lander. The module will also relay the data from the ExoMars 2022 mission once it arrives at Mars.

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From Earth to Mars: Rosalind Franklins Century of Science - SciTechDaily