ESA calls upon ministers for funding
European science and research ministers will be asked by ESA officials when they next meet for funds in excess of €400m, which will help land a rover on Mars in 2021.
This is the additional sum needed to finish building the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars robot.
A technical review has recently concluded that the project is running true to its latest schedule, but it can only go forward with full funding.
Ministers will decide ExoMars’ fate at a council in Lucerne, Switzerland.
The UK-assembled rover would launch on a Russian Soyuz rocket in August 2020 and land on the Red Planet eight months later.
It is being designed with the ability to drill up to 2m below Mars’ terrain to look for evidence of microbial activity.
Dr David Parker, ESA’s director of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration, said member-state delegations to the agency had been expressing strong support for the project in the run-up to the Lucerne gathering.
Parker added: “The rover remains scientifically compelling because there is no other mission planned to go below the surface of Mars, which is damaged by radiation and which would destroy any past or present life.”
The six-wheeled robot is the second mission in a two-step venture that Europe is conducting with the Russians.
Ahead of this council, ESA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, have conducted a thorough review of the project’s technical status, to establish that all the mission’s hardware can be made ready in time.
The expectation is that the robot will explore the Red Planet for at least 218 Martian days.
