The ExoMars mission, which will search for signs of life in the Martian subsurface for the first time, has been approved by the European space agency ESA, after the termination of its cooperation with Russia.
After many delays the mission was supposed to launch this year on a Russian rocket and land on Mars with the help of a Russian spacecraft. But ESA ended cooperation with the Russian space agency Roscosmos in March because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
ExoMars, the first European mission to the surface of Mars, an ambitious project costing €1.3 billion, is now scheduled to depart in 2028 after an emergency fund of €360 million was approved by European governments.
The decision was made at a meeting of representatives of ESA member countries in Paris, with ESA Director General Joseph Asbacher saying he hoped NASA would help the effort by providing the launch vehicle, lander and plutonium thermoelectric generator that would power the mission’s wheeled robot.
The “Rosalind Franklin” robot, whose construction has already been completed by Airbus, is equipped with a two-meter long drill, which for the first time will look for signs of ancient life underground.
As Aschbacher revealed at the meeting, in the event of a permanent cancellation of the mission the robot would probably end up in a museum.
“I am very relieved and extremely happy that this great mission was not taken away from us. I still hope to drive a robot to Mars,” Daniela Thiers, a planetary geologist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Berlin, told the Nature website.
At the Paris meeting, ESA member countries approved an increased budget of €16.9 billion for the next five years.
To date, only the US and China have sent missions to the surface of Mars.
