With the planned Christmas Day landing of the Beagle 2 probe on the surface of Mars, Europe's first mission to another planet, a new chapter will be written in the history of European space travel. But even as history is made, scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) and the national space agencies throughout the 15-member consortium are busy creating blueprints for the future of space exploration.

DW-WORLD recently sat down with Sigmar Wittig -- chairman of the board of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the agency that administers Germany's space program -- to discuss the Mars Express and other major missions ESA and DLR are planning for the future.

What is the importance of the Mars Express mission for the European space program?

The scientific mission -- to see whether there is water and life on Mars -- is of utmost importance . From a German point of view, there are some instruments on Mars Express and on the Beagle 2 that are significant. There’s the High Resolution Stereo Camera, which we expect will provide us with fantastic images and pictures that will help determine what the surface of Mars looks like. This will be correlated with measurements taken off the Martian surface and subsurface, to provide a highly accurate rendering of the planet. Meanwhile, the drill, or "Mole," is a tool developed by the German Space Agency that we’re using to go underneath the surface. You can’t just draw Martian soil samples on the surface because of the influence the outer atmosphere and space have on the planet’s surface. We have to drill down almost 1.5 meters to see what the real soil looks like and, we hope, determine what it was like a million years ago. Was there life on Mars? Is or was there water?

Does this mission signal an evolution in Europe’s space program?

This mission puts us in the first class of engineering accomplishments. It also means we’ve got the highest-standard technology in many areas, including information and navigation.

Are there any commercial benefits of the mission for Germany and Europe?

The commercial aspect is not the most important one, but rather the scientific aspect. If you look at the commercial side, certainly the high-resolution camera, for example, can also be used to take pictures of other planets and of the Earth to check remote areas and provide a total view our planet useful for the purposes of continuing Earth observation. So there is a commercial aspect, but it’s not dominant.

NASA has long been admired for the technologies it has developed and later transferred to private industry? Has there been any similar technology transfer from the European Space Program or Germany’s space program?

In the German context, a large amount of technology has been transferred from our space program. Higher temperature materials developed by the space program are used in industry as well as carbon materials, which can now be found in high-speed car brakes. A lot of this came from German space research, including the work done to develop re-entry materials for the Ariane launcher program. There has also been considerable transfer in the areas of light-weight materials, navigational systems, optical systems, like our high resolution cameras, fire detection systems and robotics.

(Future Launchers)

How do you see the European space program developing after this mission? Might the ESA launch manned space flights?

The next step will be launching the Rosetta probe next year, which we hope will visit a comet. We are also working closely together with our American colleagues on human space flight – ESA and DLR are very well linked with NASA. Then Earth observation is one of the dominant questions in Europe. Take, for example, the whole navigational question. We’re trying to start the Galileo system to compete with the American GPS navigation system. Other areas include looking at what is happening on the planet – weather forecasts, natural disasters etc. One mission we have undertaken in Germany is the BIRD satellite, which looks at fires on the Earth’s surface. We are also working on future launchers, which are used for taking payloads and satellites into space, and what they will look like. But first we have to continue working on Ariana, our satellite launching system.

In terms of the International Space Station, we are also preparing the Columbus European Research Laboratory Module as well as the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) support module (see illustration at top of story), which will be transported by Ariane rockets. The Columbus is a research module which will attach to the space station and allow scientists to conduct research in a zero gravity setting -- it is the ESA's biggest contribution to the ISS thus far. But we’re particularly excited about the ATV, because it will help close the gaps if the space shuttle is not flying. We recently had to reduce the number of astronauts on the ISS to two because the shuttle was grounded and there was no way to provide three with enough supplies. Separating the transport of humans and goods is the way to go in the future. Still, the ISS can’t live without the space shuttle. The ESA’s Columbia module and other major components have been designed specifically for transport in the shuttle’s cargo bay and they can’t be transported until the shuttles are flying again.

How do you view ESA’s position in relation to NASA? Do you see yourselves as competitors?

We obviously do have friendly competition, that’s the scientific basis. We want to be the first to find out certain things. On the other hand, we also cooperate closely. I mentioned the International Space Station. The United States is obviously the dominant force in the program, but we are cooperating really closely with them – both through ESA and our national programs. The German Space Agency funds 41 percent of the European contributions to the ISS.

When you look at Europe and its space ambitions, how do they differ from those of China, Russia or the U.S.?

The U.S. has a really broad program, but it focuses even more strongly than we do on human space flight and space exploration. China is emerging as a strong power and they are now also focusing on human space flight. I suspect they will also concentrate on Earth observation. This is a natural interest for large countries that are seeking to monitor crops, weather or even natural disasters. The dominant question is always how can we utilize it? As I indicated, ESA and DLR are focusing more on Earth observation.

One of the biggest applications of Earth observation in the future will be disaster management, including floods, earthquakes, etc. We were able to use our own space technology to monitor the recent flooding in France and eastern Germany as well as the wildfires in California and the peat fires in China. These technologies enable us to pinpoint the origins of a natural disaster, what the growth of the disaster is and where you have to put measures in place that can be most effectively utilized. With fires, if you can identify the center and the highest intensity, then you know where you need to do certain things. Those are just some of the ways in which we seek to differentiate ourselves from other space programs.