The European Space Agency (ESA) will push ahead with the troubled Mars Rover project after receiving funding from its 22 states. However, scientists are not happy with the funding for asteroid defense.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/ESA
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ESA member-states approved a total of 10.3 billion euros ($11 billion) for various space-related projects on Friday, after a two-day ministerial summit in Lucerne, Switzerland.
"This is a big amount of money for the future, it allows us to really go forward and covers all the different areas," said ESA Director General Jan Wörner.
The programs include earth observation, telecommunication and satellite navigation, as well as improvements in rocket technology. Also, ESA will receive around a billion euros to keep its post on the International Space Station (ISS) until 2024. The station is currently home to three Russian, two American and one European astronauts. Canada and Japan are also involved in the ISS.
Mission to Mars
Most notably, the European nations gave the green light for stage two of the prestigious ExoMars project, pledging almost 440 million euros more for ESA to send a life-seeking rover to Mars. The agency had already earmarked 1.5 billion euros for the joint project, partnering with Russia.
Space craft enters Mars' orbit
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The program has been hit with delays and technical issues, pushing the planned launch date from 2018 to 2020. In a key setback last month, ESA's test lander Schiaparelli crashed into Mars due to a sensor malfunction, marking a second failure to reach the planet's surface.
A further delay was not an option, according to Wörner,
"It's not an easy thing, but we are confident we will succeed," he said.
Gearing up for 'Armageddon'
ESA was also asking for funds to finance the Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM) program, exploring how to deflect an asteroid threatening Earth.
"The program AIM could not get the full subscription we needed to ensure this program runs smoothly," Wörner said, adding that the agency would continue to study asteroid defense in other ways.
"These asteroid activities, looking at how we can really defend our planet in case something is happening and Bruce Willis is not ready to do it a second time... will be continued," he said, referencing the 1998 movie Armageddon in which Willis plays a character that saves the Earth from destruction.
The ExoMars mission: Phase 1 begins
The goal of the ExoMars mission is to search for traces of life on Mars. The first phase of the mission will search for the best place to do so on the red planet.
Image: ESA
All fueled up
More than a decade's worth of work is tucked inside the body of this Russian Proton-M rocket: the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Schiaparelli EDM lander. The rocket, having just been fueled, was moved to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 10, 2016, where it was raised upright. Historically, the Proton rocket has a failure rate of 10 percent.
Image: ESA
Separation
Hours after the launch, the orbiter (black) and lander (gold) will emerge from the rocket's shell. Thus begins their seven-month journey to Mars. The Earth-Mars orbital alignment is favorable to this portion of the ExoMars mission, meaning the journey is a relatively short one.
Image: ESA
Goodbye, friend
Having accompanied each other through empty space for more than 200 days, the lander and orbiter will detach from one another three days before reaching Mars. The time is late October. For the rest of their robotic lives, they're on their own.
Image: ESA
Down it goes!
And the lander's off! At this point it's traveling at more than 20,000 kilometers per hour (12,500 miles per hour, or about 3 miles per second). Its destination is predetermined: Meridiani Planum, a flat, broad plain rich in hematite, which on Earth is often formed in hot springs. Things are about to get hot...
Image: ESA
Soft landing
Mars' atmosphere will "drag" or slow the lander, allowing it to deploy a parachute (model seen here) to reduce its velocity to roughly 200 kilometers per hour (120 MPH). When its height above the surface reaches 1.2 kilometers, the cord will sever and the lander will deploy thrusters to slow its descent and land.
Image: ESA
Tasting the air
Once on Mars, a variety of instruments inside the lander will collect various atmospheric data over a period of four days. This will give Europe's and Russia's space agencies critical information for a future rover landing. When the four days are up, Schiaparelli's battery will run out. Its mission is over.
Image: ESA
Great view up here!
Meanwhile, the orbiter will still be scooting around up above. The jets seen here will only be deployed initially - to change an elliptical orbit into a circular one.
Image: ESA
Something smells
At that point, the orbiter's job for the next few years will be to "sniff" Mars' atmosphere for traces of methane gas. Scientists in Europe and Russia will be analyzing this data to determine the best spot to aim their rover. Methane could be a clue to biological activity - a sign of life on Mars.
Image: ESA
The ExoMars rover
A 2018 follow-up launch will send the ExoMars rover toward a predetermined point on the red planet - likely Oxia Planum, which is 3,000 meters below the Martian mean and which is rich in iron-magnesium. That means water might have played a role there. See that dark gray cylinder on the front...?
Image: ESA
Drill, baby, drill!
That's the drill that will collect "cores" of Martian soil (prototype above). The hope is that when it's analyzed inside the machine through an organic molecule analyzer, it will yield signs that biological activity once occurred there. The earliest that would happen is 2019 (and maybe 2021). But it would be enormously historic. It would be the first direct evidence of life on Mars.
