The European Space Agency cancels its projects with Russia

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced Thursday the suspension of cooperation with Russia, forcing it to quickly seek alternatives for launching its next missions, in particular to Mars.

The ExoMars mission was scheduled for this year, but in the face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, ESA, in a statement, “acknowledged the impossibility of maintaining current cooperation with (the Russian space agency) Roscosmos”.

ExoMars, whose objective was to pose an autonomous exploration vehicle (rover) on Mars, could be delayed until 2026.

The executive council of ESA commissioned its director to carry out a rapid study to relaunch ExoMars and seek alternatives for four other missions.

“This is a very bitter fact for all space enthusiasts,” said Roscosmos manager Dmitri Rogozin.

Russia will be able to send its own exploration ship to Mars in a few years, he said.

“Yes, it will take a few years (...) but we will be able to carry out this fact-finding mission alone from the new launch site of the Vostochny cosmodrome,” he said.

- A mission dotted with incidents -

ExoMars planned to launch the rover bound for Mars in September with the help of a Russian shuttle and landing structure.

Until now, ESA mission launches depended on the use of the Russian Soyuz shuttle from the European spaceport of Kuru in French Guiana.

Roscosmos suspended Soyuz's launches from Kuru in reaction to the European sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine. His team, consisting of about 100 engineers and technicians, also ceased.

Initially planned for 2020, the launch of ExoMars had already been postponed to September 2022 due to the pandemic.

The ESA rover, Rosalind Franklin, was to be launched from Baikonur (Kazakhstan) and reached Mars thanks to the “Kazachok” landing platform, also Russian.

The shooting window to Mars opens every two years. The mission is impossible “at least until 2026,” explained ESA Director-General Josef Aschbacher.

Cooperation with US NASA “is an option,” he said.

The other ESA missions that depend on the use of the Soyuz shuttle were also suspended. These are two satellites destined for the European location constellation Galileo, the scientific mission Euclid and the European-Japanese Earth Observation Mission EarthCare.

The situation is difficult because one of the alternatives to replace Soyuz, the Ariane 6 rocket, has a full schedule.

That rocket has yet to put into orbit a French military observation satellite, CSO-3, and the mission will be delayed by one year, due to the cancellation of Russian services.

The greatest symbol of space cooperation with Russia, dating back to the 1990s, when the Soviet Union fell, is still the International Space Station (ISS).

The ISS basically has two segments, one American and one Russian.

The head of Roscosmos recently warned of the effect of sanctions on his own plans. The Progress spacecraft, for example, serves to keep the ISS in its orbit.

Aschbacher ruled out an impact on the security of the ISS on Thursday. “Operations are stable and secure,” he said.

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