Europe pledges to launch Mars rover delayed by war

After repeated delays and the loss of its Russian-built rockets, Europe’s ExoMars rover is go for launch again, in 2028, government ministers agreed last week. The rover was due to set off for the Red Planet in September on a Russian Proton rocket and land on a Russian-built craft, until the European Space Agency (ESA) cut ties with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. At a budget setting meeting last week, ESA resolved to launch the mission on a yet-to-be-determined U.S. rocket and develop its own lander—with some help from NASA.

“This is fantastic news for science and for the search for signs of life elsewhere,” says Andrew Coates of University College London, principal investigator (PI) of a panoramic camera on the rover. “It’s something positive: we still have a mission,” adds Valérie Ciarletti of the University of Paris-Saclay, PI of the rover’s ground-penetrating radar. The golf cartsize rover, dubbed Rosalind Franklin after the British DNA pioneer, carries a sample-collecting drill that can penetrate up to 2 meters underground, where signs of ancient life might be preserved from radiation and other harsh surface conditions.

The announcement came at the end of a budget meeting of ESA’s 22 member states that occurs every 3 years. Ministers approved €16.9 billion in funding over the next 5 years to cover science, exploration, rockets, Earth observation, and telecommunications. The nearly 17% increase over the previous budget was less than ESA management had asked for, and some programs will feel a squeeze. But the €2.7 billion—a 16% increase—going to the exploration program is enough to revive the ExoMars program, which has included multiple Mars missions.

The project’s first phase delivered the Trace Gas Orbiter to Mars in 2016, as well as a landing demonstrator, called Schiaparelli, which failed less than a minute before touchdown because of a software error that switched off landing rockets too early. Rosalind Franklin, which would be ESA’s first rover on the Martian surface, was set to follow in 2018.

Problems mating the rover with the Russian-made lander, called Kazachok, delayed the launch by 2 years. (Mars windows occur roughly every 2 years, when the planets align.) Next the lander’s parachutes, as well as its solar panels and wiring, caused trouble, forcing another delay to 2022. Then in March, with Kazachok and Rosalind Franklin ready to go, war intervened.

In building a new, Russia-free landing system, “we are not starting from scratch,” says Thierry Blancquaert, ESA’s ExoMars team leader. Most components on Schiaparelli worked faultlessly, and ESA provided—and can reuse—some systems on Kazachok, including its parachutes, radar, radio communications, and the onboard computer. Engineers will now remove these from the Russian lander, which remains in Italy, where it was due to be shipped to Russia’s launch site in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, along with the rover, when Russia invaded. But no European manufacturer makes the kind of thrusters needed to set the 310-kilogram Rosalind Franklin gently on the surface. This is where NASA comes in, Blancquaert says. It has offered to source the thrusters from a U.S. manufacturer.

NASA may also provide radioisotope heaters, power packs that use the decay of plutonium-238 to keep the rover from freezing during the frigid martian nights. If it does, U.S. regulations require that the heaters fly on a U.S. launcher, which would most likely be a SpaceX Falcon-Heavy or a Vulcan Centaur from United Launch Alliance. NASA would not confirm any details of its involvement, but Eric Ianson, the agency’s Mars Exploration program director, said in a statement: “NASA and ESA are planning key conversations in the coming months on a potential collaboration for ESA’s ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission, subject to the availability of U.S. funding.”

Two other rovers—NASA’s Perseverance and China’s Tianwen-1—have almost a decade’s head start. But an ESA study found that the science ExoMars will provide after it lands in 2030 would still be worthwhile—especially investigations using its deep drill. For the scientists involved, there is no doubt: “No mission can replace ExoMars,” Ciarletti says.

The real losers of the new arrangement are scientists—both Russian and European—who designed instruments to be mounted on the Kazachok lander. Because of the tight timetable for developing the new ESA lander, it will not do any science. “My feeling is of great discouragement due to the current geopolitical situation,” says Francesca Esposito of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte, who built a dust sensor for the earlier lander. “But I am very happy that this has not stopped this great mission.”

Correction, 29 November, 11:35 a.m.: A previous version of this story incorrectly suggested the Rosalind Franklin rover and Kazachok lander were due to be mated in Italy. In fact, they were supposed to be mated in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

source: sciencemag.org