The European Space Agency and the Russian Roscosmos announced today, Thursday, the postponement of their joint mission to Mars until 2022, due in part to the travel difficulties resulting from the pandemic of coronavirus.
The ExoMars mission was planned for this year, but there was already talk of a postponement due to a number of technical problems.
“It is mainly due to the need to maximize all ExoMars systems, as well as circumstances of force majeure related to the exacerbation of the epidemiological situation in Europe that practically leave our experts without the possibility of traveling to partner industries,” he said in a statement Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin.
The objective of the mission is to send a roaming robot to the red planet to determine if there was ever life there. Scientists hope that the robot, loaded with high-tech instruments and named after British chemist Rosalind Franklin, will search for biological traces of life below the Martian surface and reveal the history of water on the planet.
The ExoMars program launched an orbital probe and a test probe that was to descend on the planet in 2016. The orbital did its job, but the Schiaparelli probe suffered a crash and crashed onto the Martian surface.
“We want to be 100% certain that the mission will be successful,” said ESA CEO Jan Woerner. “We cannot afford a margin of error. Further verification of activities will ensure safe travel and the best scientific results on Mars,” he added.
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