A joint European and Russian
mission to Mars is being postponed
from July until sometime in 2022, as the coronavirus pandemic is preventing
scientists from resolving a few technical difficulties, the European Space
Agency said March 12.
“We cannot fly in 2020,” ESA
director general Jan Wörner
says. “This is a disappointment for me personally, and for the teams working.
But it’s better safe than sorry.”
The ExoMars rover’s team had
already been considering a delay to solve problems with the rover’s landing gear
before the virus outbreak emerged. The parachute that will slow the rover’s
descent through the thin Martian atmosphere developed tears in earlier tests. A
new design will be tested in the next weeks or months, Wörner says.
Other issues with the
descent module’s electronic equipment meant components have been sent back to
Russia for repairs, he says. And more tests needed to get the rover ready for
launch require team members to travel between Italy, France and Moscow — impossible for now amid new travel restrictions
imposed in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus (SN: 3/11/20).
The launch was “at risk
before all this [coronavirus] crisis came up,” Wörner says. “The coronavirus has had an additional
impact. But to be blunt, even if the coronavirus was not happening today, we
would still postpone the launch.”
The third spacecraft of the ExoMars mission
(SN: 3/11/16), the rover will carry a drill to dig into the Martian
surface in search of signs of present and past life. That mission goal inspired
the team to name the rover Rosalind Franklin, after the English chemist who
discovered the structure of DNA.
The team sent the mission’s
first two spacecraft, the Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli lander, to Mars
in 2016. But the lander quickly lost contact with Earth, possibly having crashed (SN: 10/20/16).
Postponing the Rosalind
Franklin’s journey involved “some very tough decisions,” Wörner says. Mars’ and Earth’s orbits bring the planets
close enough to launch spacecraft only every two years. The next chance to launch
will be between August and October 2022.
