ExoMars is relaunched. The most ambitious European mission to the red planet will take off, barring technical hazards, at the end of 2028. Objective? Try to find traces of past life by analyzing samples of Martian soil. This, with the support of the United States, with which a new partnership agreement has just been finalized after several months of discussions.
ExoMars, a program which has experienced many vicissitudes since its launch in 2001, should have taken off in September 2022, aboard a Russian rocket (Proton) from the Baikonur space base, in Kazakhstan. But the establishment of sanctions against Russia, following the invasion of Ukraine at the end of February 2022, led Moscow to suspend its space cooperation with Europeans. No more Soyuzes fired from Kourou, in Guyana, no more satellites launched from Baikonur on behalf of Arianespace customers and therefore no more question of going to Mars together.
A takeoff planned between October and December 2028
However, Russia also had to supply the module…
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