Russia invited by ExoMars to join space missions to Mars

The Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos have been invited by the European and NASA’s joint Mars program (ExoMars) in order to start mapping out the 2016 and 2018 expeditions to planet Mars.

ExoMars do not have enough financial/technical resources to support their space missions and have sought the help of the Russians to share their resources for the future mission to Mars.

Two Martian missions have been scheduled to take place in the near future. In the 2016 mission to Mars, a study will be conducted about the Martian atmosphere (via satellite), whereas the 2018 mission will include a robot rover to investigate the surface of Mars physically.

According to reports the European and US Space agencies (ESA and NASA) are struggling financially to cover costs of the missions. However, both space agencies are aware of the interest of Roscosmos in the project and will request a rocket to launch the satellite in 2016.

With the Russian space agency’s approval in coordinating with the duo space agencies, both the Martian missions will become financially feasible.

Discussions are currently underway and a deadline of January has been set for all the parties to be satisfied. In an interview to BBC News, the director of science at ESA, Dr. Alvaro Gimenez said, “Everything is open for discussion. There are possibilities for the Russians to contribute to the rover; there may also be possibilities for them to contribute to the payload on the orbiter.”

He said that due to their tight schedule ExoMars did not have much time to get everything on board in the 2016 mission. Gimenez further added that they did not have enough room available in the rover, since it was only made for ESA and NASA.

“That’s why we have to start the discussions now, to see what the Russians have available and what they can develop in a fast-track,” said the director of science.

ExoMars are hoping that Roscosmos would provide their Proton launch vehicles in order to send the satellite.

If an agreement cannot be reached by February 2012, ESA and NASA might be forced to abandon the 2016 mission and divert their attentions towards the rover mission. Cancelling the 2016 mission, can lead to technical problems in 2018, especially in getting the rover’s data back to Earth. Therefore resulting in a reconfiguration of the whole 2018 mission as it would require a dedicated telecommunication orbiter installed in the rover.

The collaboration between the space agencies would open the doors to further investigate Mars for signs of life using instrumentation and technology for the missions in future.

Posted by Nabeel Salam on Oct 19 2011. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry