Why Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to the failure of Europe's largest space project towards Mars

Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to the cancellation of many scientific collaboration programs on this planet and also on Mars. Last month, the European Space Agency (ESA) confirmed the cancellation of the Russian-European mission ExoMars 2022 that was planned to be launched on the red planet next September on a Soyuz rocket, in what would be the first Martian space exploration with a rover for Russia and Europe.

This is the largest space project that ESA and Roscosmos were going to carry out with a view to our neighboring planet in order not to be so relegated to NASA in terms of Martian space exploration, after the success of the US space agency with the last two successful robots rolling on the red surface of Mars, as are Curiosity and Perseverance.

“The decision of ESA is difficult”, as its director-general, Josef Aschbacher, admitted, and was taken in the face of the practical and political impossibility of continuing to work on it with Russia, sanctioned by the international community as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.

Exomars was composed of two missions. The first was launched in 2016 and consisted of a satellite for the study of gases in the Martian atmosphere (TGO) and the Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing module, which crashed into the planet's surface by mistake in a miscalculation. This second mission envisaged filming the rover Rosalind Franklin on Mars, who would seek to take and study samples of Martian soil. The mission suffered several delays, as it was originally scheduled to be launched in 2018 and then in 2020. But everything was postponed, first due to adjustments specific to the mission and then due to the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic that prevented experts from carrying out all the necessary pre-tests.

Exomars planned to land in the Oxia Planum region, located north of that planet's equator, which has thick, clayey sedimentary deposits that, according to ESA, could correspond to lagoons or marine deposits. Last year, a twin model to the rover Rosalind Franklin performed a successful test for soil drilling. The Ground Test Model (or Ground Test Model, in Spanish), is an identical representation of the Rosalind Franklin, and is the one with which the agency tests on Earth simulating what the original rover will do on Mars.

One of the tests that the Ground Test Model (GTM) has been subjected to is the drilling and collection of rock, in order to know how well its' brother 'will do during his visit to Mars; and it seems that he has not only met, but, of course, broke records. According to ESA, Rosalind Franklin had to drill a total of two meters deep, this being the deepest drilling in the history of space exploration. It should be recalled that the current record stands at seven centimeters by Perserverance.

Well, even if it wasn't on Mars, the GTM has already exceeded that 7 cm by far, drilling a total of 1.7 meters into the ground. And in 2021 ESA announced it, proudly, like this: “Rosalind Franklin's twin has been drilling a well filled with a variety of rocks and soil layers. The first sample was taken from a block of cemented clay of medium hardness. Drilling was carried out on a platform inclined seven degrees to simulate the collection of a sample in a non-vertical position. The drill acquired the sample in the form of a ball approximately 1 cm in diameter and 2 cm in length.”

The objectives of ExoMars were to look for signs of life both in the past and today, to investigate how water and the Martian geochemical environment vary over time, to study the composition of traces of gases in the atmosphere as well as their sources of origin, and to test technology to make a hypothetical mission that would bring samples back from Mars be viable.

Calendar problem

Given that there are only conditions conducive to launching a mission to Mars every 26 months, if collaboration were to be resumed in time, 2024 would be the earliest date, but ESA saw that hypothesis unlikely and admitted that 2026, with other partners, appears as the next most feasible possibility.

“But even that date will be a challenge. There will be new decisions and funding needed and all that is something that needs to be discussed,” said the CEO. The US space agency (NASA) has already shown interest in supporting the mission, but ESA must now assess what can be done at European level and in what areas it might need cooperation.

The failure of Exomars is also counted in euros. In the last decade, ESA has invested some 1 billion euros in this project. “It's not wasted money. The industry has learned a lot,” said ESA chief Aschbacher at a press conference that made it clear that when Exomars can be launched, its results will continue to be useful because there is no other similar mission that can be advanced.

Russia is not far behind

Russian Dmitri Rogozin, director of Roscosmos, did not turn back on the goal of exploring Mars, despite the European decision. “We have lost several years, but we will make a replica of our descent module, we will equip it with an Angar carrier rocket and from the new Voschoni cosmodrome we will carry out this scientific expedition on our own,” confirmed Rogozin, who accused Europeans of servility to the United States, while the head of the press office by Roscosmos, Dmitri Strugovets, considered that “it is a shame that ESA colleagues put their anti-Russian stance above humanity's common goals of studying the universe.”

ESA had today admitted that, while recognizing the impact on scientific exploration of space, “as an intergovernmental organization mandated to develop and implement space programmes in full respect of European values, it fully aligns itself” with the sanctions imposed on Russia by its member States.

Exomars is not the only one affected by collateral as a result of the conflict. Roscosmos' decision to withdraw its personnel from the European space center in French Guiana has forced all missions that were to take off with a Russian Soyuz rocket to be interrupted and to look for alternatives as well. Roscosmos suspended Soyuz's launches from Kuru in reaction to the European sanctions imposed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. His team, consisting of about 100 engineers and technicians, also ceased.

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.

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