Stevenage Industrial Estate Doubles For Mars

27 March 2014, 17:13 | Updated: 27 March 2014, 17:53

A replica of the surface of Mars - created in anonymous corner of a Stevenage industrial estate - is being extended.

The realistic 'mock up' of the Red Planet has been made bigger - to become the testing ground for the new Mars Rover.

Andrew Stroomer from Airbus Defence and Space told Heart what they're doing - and why: "There's a set of different obstacles so rocks for example the Mars Rover can travel over and rocks it has to avoid to make sure it exercises it's navigation systems.

Different slopes for example and different light conditions.

We do a lot of work here for the European Space Agency. We're involved in a lot of European projects.

Stevenage is at the heart of a lot of the European projects, the rover is here and we're also building the mission called the Solar Orbiter here to go and analyse the sun."