The long-awaited ExoMars mission still dreams of a 2028 launch

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ExoMars' Rosalind Franklin wanted to search for signs of life, but will have to wait a little longer

Rosalind Franklin of the ExoMars mission wanted to look for signs of life, but would have to wait a little longer.

War, budget cuts, pandemic and meltdown: For all its trials, the ExoMars mission to Europa may be more deserving of the name Perseverance than NASA’s Mars rover.


But the European Space Agency is still hopeful that the mission will launch in 2028 on its long-awaited quest to find him. extraterrestrial life on the red planet.

This time last year, the European Space Agency’s Rosalind Franklin spacecraft was ready for launch in September from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, planning to ride on a Russian rocket and descend to the surface of Mars on a Russian lander.

Then Moscow invaded Ukraine in March, and sanctions imposed by the 22 member states of the European Space Agency led Russia to withdraw and suspend the mission.

It was the latest blow to the hundreds of scientists who had worked on the project for more than two decades.

First launched in 2001, the ambitious program quickly proved too expensive for Europe, which has yet to land a rover on Mars.

NASA stepped in to fill the funding gap in 2009. But three years later, Budget cuts It led to the withdrawal of NASA.

Then help came from an unexpected source: Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.

The European Space Agency and Roscosmos jointly launched the Schiaparelli EDM module in 2016 as a test run for ExoMars.

But when Schiaparelli reaches Mars, a computer glitch causes him to crash into the surface and go silent.

This failure has delayed the launch of the joint Russian-European ExoMars mission to July 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed that date back to 2022, when it was pushed back again due to the invasion of Ukraine.

Difficult Russian negotiations

Late last year, the European Space Agency’s ministerial council agreed to keep the mission alive with an injection of 500 million euros ($540 million) over the next three years.

David Parker, director of human and robotic exploration at the European Space Agency, said last week that one of the arguments they made for continuing the mission was, “This is a unique piece of European science.

“It’s like James Webb,” he said, referring to the space telescope that has been sending back stunning images of distant galaxies since 2022.

“But it’s for Mars – it’s this scope of ambition.

The Rosalind Franklin rover can drill up to two meters below the surface of Mars

The Rosalind Franklin rover can drill up to two meters below the surface of Mars.

“This is the only projected mission that can actually find evidence of past life.”

But there are still some big hurdles that could make a launch in 2028 difficult — including that the European Space Agency needs a new way to land its Mars rover.

The European Space Agency will first have to recover the European components, including an on-board computer and Radar altimeterfrom Russia’s Kazachok lander, which remains at the assembly site in Turin, Italy.

However, only Russia can extract the components from the probe.

Tough negotiations take place until Russian experts come and dismantle the probe.

“We were expecting them in mid-January, but they didn’t come,” Thierry Blanccourt, team leader of the European Space Agency’s ExoMars program, told AFP.

“We asked them to get everything done by the end of March,” he added.

NASA to the rescue?

To get off the ground, the new mission will rely on support from NASA, which has so far indicated it is happy to help.

For the new lander, the European Space Agency hopes to make use of the American engines used to bring NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rover to the surface of Mars.

It will also have to rely on NASA for radioisotope heating units, having lost access to Russian supplies. These units keep the spacecraft warm.

NASA has not yet voted on a budget that would support such an effort, Blanquert said, but “we are preparing to work collaboratively together and things are progressing well.”

“This new impetus for cooperation is linked to the fact that this time the United States has a joint project with Europe: the return of Mars samples,” said François Forget, an astrophysicist at the French scientific research center CNRS.

The mission, planned for around 2030, aims to return to Earth samples collected from Mars by both ExoMars and Perseverance, which landed on the planet in July 2021.

Unlike Perseverance, the Rosalind Franklin rover can drill up to 2 meters (6.5 feet) below the surface of Mars, where possible traces of ancient life might be better preserved.

ExoMars’ chart landing site It is also located in a region of Mars that is predicted to be more suitable for hosting past life.

“We think there was a lot of water,” Nassan said.

“There is another Mars to be explored, so even in 10 years Mission It will never become obsolete.”

© 2023 AFP

the quote: Long Delayed ExoMars Mission Still Dreaming of 2028 Launch (2023, February 3) Retrieved February 3, 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023-02-long-delayed-exomars-mission.html

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