Officials of the European Space Agency (ESA) unanimously decided to suspend a joint Mars mission with Russia. The announcement was released on March 15, following a two-day meeting of representatives from the 22 member states that imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its conflict with Ukraine.
The ExoMars rover mission was initially planned to launch in 2018 but was delayed to September 2022 due to parachute issues. Gizmodo reported that the ESA leadership has suspended its launch on a Russian Proton rocket indefinitely. ESA officials are now looking for potential paths to move forward with the mission now that Russia is out.
Launch of ExoMars Mission in Doubt
ESA's ExoMars program is a two-part mission that consists of the Trace Gas Orbiter that was launched in 2016 to study the chemistry of the atmosphere of Mars, and a rover and surface platform that is still awaiting confirmation for launch. The rover is named after the famous scientist Rosalind Franklin who discovered the double helix structure of DNA.
ESA had hoped that the arrival of the Russian space agency Roscosmos to the ExoMars program will save the mission after NASA withdrew in 2012. The American space agency initially agreed to provide Atlas 5 rockets for the 2016 and 2018 launches and to divide the cost of the rover.
The mission has been planned for a long time and received its first funding 10 years ago. However, technical delays and the COVID-19 pandemic further pushed the launch date for the rover later this year. Although the target is now not looking good after ESA suspended it due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
But ever since then, the launch of ExoMars was in doubt. ESA said in a statement, shortly after the invasion last month, that they are fully implementing sanctions imposed on Russia by their member states and that has affected the launch of the Mars rover this 2022.
Will This Be The End For ExoMars?
Despite the end of the partnership between ESA and Russia, ESA officials said that they are looking for alternative partners. SpaceNews reported that ESA Director-General Josef Aschbacher is considering NASA once again after a decade since the American space agency pulled out from the project.
Additionally, Live Science reported that the council told Aschbacher to begin an industrial study to look for alternative ways to launch ExoMars and place the Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars The rover was supposed to launch from Baikonur, Kazakhstan during a 12-day launch window starting on September 20, 2022, and was expected to land on June 10, 2023.
ExoMars' mission is to look for evidence of life on the Red Planet by drilling down to a depth of 6.5 feet (2 meters) to collect Martian rock samples that will be analyzed in the ESA laboratory. With its six wheels, the rover can be steered and driven independently which produces the unique locomotion called "wheel walking."
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