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 going for launch again. The planned landing of the rover on the Red Planet was put off until the European Space Agency decided to cut ties with Russia. At last week's budget setting meeting, the European Space Agency decided to launch the mission on a U.S. rocket and develop its own landers.

The discovery of a panoramic camera on the rover is great news for science and the search for signs of life elsewhere. Valérie Ciarletti of the University of Paris-Saclay says that there is still a mission to be accomplished. A sample-collecting drill can penetrate up to 2 meters underground, where signs of ancient life may be preserved from radiation and other harsh surface conditions.

Every 3 years, a budget meeting of the 22 member states of the European Space Agency takes place. Over the next five years, ministers approved 16.9 billion for science, exploration, rockets, Earth observation, and telecommunications. The increase over the previous budget was less than the management had requested. The ExoMars program, which has included multiple Mars missions, has been resuscitated thanks to the 2.7 billion increase to the exploration program.

The first phase of the project delivered the Trace Gas Orbiter to Mars in 2016 but it failed less than a minute before touchdown because of a software glitch. The first rover on the Martian surface was set to be built by the European Space Agency.

The launch was delayed by 2 years because of problems with the landers. Mars windows occur every 2 years when the planets align. Problems with the lander's parachutes and solar panels caused another delay. War broke out in March when Kazachok and Franklin were about to leave.

In building a new landing system, the team is not starting from the bottom up. The majority of components on Schiaparelli worked well, and the system on Kazachok can be used again. The Russian lander is in Italy and was due to be sent to Russia's launch site in Baikonur. European manufacturers don't make the kind of thrusters that are needed to set the weight of Franklin on the surface. Blancquaert says that NASA is here. The company has offered to source the thrusters from a U.S. manufacturer.

The decay of plutonium-238 can be used to keep the rover from freezing during the cold nights on Mars. If it does, the U.S. regulations require that the heaters fly on a U.S. launch vehicle. NASA would not confirm any details of its involvement, but Eric Ianson, the agency's Mars Exploration program director, said in a statement.

NASA's Perseverance and China's Tianwen-1 are the only other rovers that have been around for a long time. The science that will be provided by ExoMars will still be worthwhile, even after it lands in the year 2030. There is no doubt that no mission can replace the work done by the scientists.

Russian and European scientists have designed instruments that will be mounted on the landers. It won't do any science because of the tight timetable. A dust sensor was built for the earlier landers by the astronomer of the observatory of Capodimonte. This mission has not been stopped.