The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced, following a Special Council, the suspension of the ExoMars mission, conducted jointly with the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos. This decision was taken after many reflections and obviously follows the war in Ukraine initiated by Russia three weeks ago.
The Rosalind Franklin rover will have to wait until 2024, or even 2026 to hope to land on the red planet, while the ESA finds alternatives and a new launch window.
The inevitable happened
The ExoMars mission once again suffers a huge setback. After the crash of the Schiaparelli lander on Mars in 2016 and the postponement of the launch of the Rosalind Franklin rover from 2020 to 2022, the mission finds itself completely suspended following the war in Ukraine and the European sanctions imposed on Russia. ESA made it known after a Council, via its Director General Josef Aschbacher, that it had no choice but to cancel the take-off initially scheduled for September 2022.
The Proton launcher, the Kazatchok lander and some tools integrated into the Rosalind Franklin rover were supplied by Russia, thus leading to the suspension of the mission.
” The decision has been made, this launch cannot take place given the current circumstances. On a practical but also political level, it is impossible to have a launch in September “said the Director General of ESA in his press release, sharing at the same time the immense disappointment of the teams who have been working for many years on the project and who feared, since the start of the invasion three weeks ago , such words.
ESA must find alternatives
Josef Aschbacher was instructed by the Council to rapidly conduct industrial studies in order to seek alternatives to launch the mission. For the moment, nothing concrete has emerged, but the word “NASA” has been mentioned to form a new cooperation. The American Space Agency withdrew from the program ten years ago, bringing Europe and Russia closer together, but recently announced its desire to support this mission.
Whether tensions calm down between Europe and Russia, and therefore ESA and Roscosmos, or whether an alternative is found, the launch of the ExoMars mission will most likely not take place before 2024, or even 2026 or beyond. . Note that the firing windows to Mars are only opened once every two years, when the two planets are the closest to each other.
At the same time, Russia announced on February 26 to suspend all Soyuz launches in Guyana and withdraw its personnel, leaving five missions awaiting a launch. Among them possibly European rockets like Ariane 6, whose first flight is scheduled for the second half of 2022.
Since February 24, Russia has been waging a war of invasion in Ukraine. The conflict will have consequences on the world, including in the space sector. In perpetual evolution, the latter will have to adapt, and particularly in Europe. A terrible waste, after decades of cooperation.
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Source: space news
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