The European Space Agency (ESA), in connection with the military actions in Ukraine, decided to freeze cooperation with Roscosmos on the ExoMars mission, stated that the launch of the mission in 2022 is impossible. The ESA Director General will look for other options for implementing the mission of the main apparatus of the ExoMars project - the Rosalind Franklin rover . Initially, it was planned that he would be launched into space by a Russian Proton-M carrier rocket, and he would land on Mars on the Kazachok platform, which is being built by the Lavochkin NGO.
ExoMars is a joint program of ESA and Roscosmos for the exploration of Mars. Its first stage began in 2016: the Trace Gas Orbiter, which successfully entered orbit around Mars, and the Schiaparelli demonstration descent module, which crashed during landing, went into space. We wrote more about this mission in the material "Looking for you" .
The second ExoMars mission was planned for 2018, but then the launch was postponed to 2020 due to problems with the landing parachute, and then postponed for another two years due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the agreement signed back in 2013, Roscosmos was supposed to provide a Proton-M launch vehicle for this mission, it would launch a flight module into space, and that would deliver the Kazachok landing module with the Rosalind Franklin rover to the Maps.
After Russian troops entered the territory of Ukraine, the ESA said that the launch of the rover in 2022 is "unlikely." The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, after that, however, said that Proton-M was ready to be sent to Baikonur.
Now the ESA governing council has announced that it is impossible to continue cooperation with Roscosmos on ExoMars in the previous mode, the launch of the mission in 2022 is also recognized as impossible under existing conditions. The Governing Council instructed the agency's director General to freeze all activities within the framework of the project, as well as to explore other possibilities for launching the rover.
The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, commenting on the ESA decision, said that Roscosmos plans to "repeat our lander, provide it with an Angara launch vehicle and conduct this research expedition independently from the new launch complex of the Vostochny cosmodrome."
The representative of the state corporation explained to N + 1 that the ready-made Kazachok landing platform is currently being tested in Europe, and it is "not possible to take it to Russia due to the lack of air traffic."
The Proton-M launch vehicle and the Briz-M upper stage, which were intended to launch the ExoMars mission, will be sent to the Baikonur Cosmodrome on schedule, but it will be used to launch another payload.
While the fate of the second stage of ExoMars is unknown, the Trace Gas Orbiter probe continues to operate in near-Martian orbit and has opened a "hydrogen chloride season" on the Red Planet. You can read about it in our material "It appears, then disappears" .
Vasilisa Chernyavtseva
From the editor, After the release, information about the reaction of Roscosmos was added to the note (6-7 paragraphs)
