The European March mission Exomars 2020 should be given a new name, because the launch of this year has been postponed to 2022. European space agency ESA announced this week after consultation with mission partner Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
ESA executives decided to postpone the mission to run additional tests on the equipment. Also, the coronavirus outbreak plays a role in the decision, as the experts required for the final stages before launch cannot travel through Europe.
The reason it now takes two years longer to launch instead of a few months, for example, is because the position of Mars every two years is good enough to fire devices at it. At other times, the red planet is still too far from Earth, so a flight takes longer than necessary.
All preparations for the mission have now been completed. The Russian lander has all his instruments on it and the European robber, named after the chemist Rosalind Franklin, recently completed the final tests. Parachutes required for landing have been successfully tested by the US space agency NASA.
Nevertheless, ESA and Roscosmos want to do extra tests, to be completely sure that everything will go well. If the landing succeeds, a non-American device will successfully land on the red planet for the first time.
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Rosalind Franklin during tests in France. (Photo: ESA)
Rover will search for traces of life on Mars
On Mars, the Rosalind Franklin rover will drive around and do soil research to find traces of life on Mars. With a special drill, the vehicle can peek up to two meters deep in the planet.
The Rosalind Franklin is part of the ExoMars program of ESA and Roscosmos, which focuses on research on life on the ‘red planet’. In this program, the Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli lander were previously launched in 2016.
The Schiaparelli lander had to test the landing technique with which the Rosalind Franklin should land on Mars. In addition, it would measure air pressure, wind speed, temperature and humidity on the planet. During the landing, however, the lander’s computer made a calculation error, causing the landing procedure to fail and the Schiaparelli to crash on the surface of Mars.
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