In the third episode of the WeMartians Podcast, we learn a little bit about the 1877 perihelic opposition of Mars, during which many famous astronomers, Giovanni Schiaparelli included, made crucial discoveries about the Red Planet.
Then, we’ll explore how this affects us today and for the launch of ExoMars. To help explain the massive process that goes in to building and launching a spacecraft, we’re joined by Assembly Integration and Test Engineer Michael Coarezza of Thales Alenia. He shares some stories about meeting deadlines, working with the historical Proton rocket, and the importance that international collaboration plays in space exploration today.
Audio Links from the show:

ExoMars LiveStream Archive
ExoMars Launch Footage
Michael Coarezza’s Twitter Account (@MichaelCoarezza)

Other Links
Learn more about historical observations of Mars from the book The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery, available for free online here.
WeMartians Theme Song is “RetroFuture” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/