ESA suspends the launch of a joint mission with Exomas, Russia

Paris, 17 March The European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Thursday the suspension of the launch of the Exomars mission, which aims to find biological or geological evidence for life on Mars due to the inability to cooperate with the Russian agency Roscosmos, to collaborate on this project. ESA, which claimed to be “completely” consistent with the sanctions imposed on Russia by its member states after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, said it would evaluate the options that rovers (exploration vehicles) could use to carry out their mission to be launched in September. Josef Aschbacher, CEO of the organization, added on Twitter that the decision to stop was “difficult but necessary.” This Wednesday and Thursday, the ESA Council in Paris stated that “in view of the impossibility of carrying out continued cooperation with Roscosmos in the Exomars mission,” it asked the Secretary-General to “take appropriate measures to suspend cooperation activities accordingly”, according to the Russian agency. Exomars consisted of two missions: the first was launched in 2016 and consisted of a satellite and a Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing module for the study of trace gases in the Martian atmosphere (TGO), which in the same year accidentally collided with the planet's surface and opened the parachute in advance. The second, together with Rosalind Franklin Rover, was initially postponed from 2018 to 2020, and then to 2022. This is due to the deterioration of the epidemiological situation in Europe, which prevented specialists from carrying out all the necessary tests. The purpose of the latter was to take and study samples from the soil of Mars thanks to sophisticated devices. It was planned to land in the region of Oxia Planum, located north of the planet's equator and with thick and clayey sediments.According to ESA, this could correspond to marine lagoons or sediments. The European agency recalled on Thursday that Roscosmos's decision to withdraw personnel from the European Space Center in French Guiana suspended all missions to take off with the Russian Soyuz rocket. Aschbacher has already begun to analyze possible alternative launchers, added ESA. According to this, in the coming weeks, a special committee meeting will be convened to present specific proposals to member states. The agency emphasized that the International Space Station (ISS) program continues and its main goal is to keep operations safe.The ISS is supported by ESA, Roscomos, the United States Space Agency (NASA), JAXA in Japan, and CSA in Canada. mgr/atc/icon