The ExoMars project

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The ExoMars project will be the 21st-century attempt to crack one of the most popular and intriguing scientific mysteries of the modern time - whether life ever existed on Mars. First conceived in Europe as a rover mission, ExoMars was later split into a two-part program developed jointly by NASA and ESA. With plans for returning samples of Martian soil pushed beyond 2020, ExoMars became the most advanced venture to explore the Red Planet during the 2010s.

Previous chapter: Phobos-Grunt mission

After several years of initial planning, in 2005, the launch of the ExoMars rover was delayed from 2009 to 2011. Around 2006, the project was broadened in scope but had to be delayed again from 2011 to 2013 and switched from Soyuz-2-1b to the Ariane-5 rocket, with Proton also under consideration. In October 2008, the project was delayed from November 2013 to January-February 2016. In July 2009, the ExoMars had to be delayed from 2016 to 2018, and switched from Ariane-5 to the US Atlas.

ExoMars 2016

According to plans formulated by December 2009, a NASA Atlas V 421 rocket was to launch the European Trace Gas Orbiter and the Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module, EDM, in January 2016, with the goal of arriving to Mars in nine months in October 2016.

The orbiter would release the lander during its approach to Mars, after which, EDM would use a parachute followed by a rocket-powered landing with the help of liquid-propellant engines.

According to the original plans, the 700-kilogram ESA lander was designed to survive on the surface of the Red Planet for around eight sols (Martian days) using only battery power and doing limited science. Later, its lifespan had to be reduced to just four sols. However the main purpose of the lander was the technical validation of a future European system to conduct a controlled soft landing on Mars. The European lander was proposed to replace an American spacecraft, which had originally been considered for this mission.

From its 400-kilometer orbit, the Trace Gas Orbiter was conceived to use sensors capable of registering methane and other gases. During the 2000s, data from the European Mars Express spacecraft confirmed the existence of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Biological organisms on Earth are known to be a major source of methane in the atmosphere, however the origin of the same gas on Mars remained a mystery. If the orbiter could be able to pinpoint exact sources of methane on the surface, these areas could be further scrutinized with imagery.

The Trace Gas Orbiter would have to complete most of its scientific tasks by the end of 2018, when it was expected to primarily become a data-relay center for a pair of incoming rovers.

ExoMars 2018

In April 2018, NASA's Atlas rocket would launch the European Space Agency's long-delayed ExoMars rover and a smaller NASA rover (Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher, MAX-C) to look for signs of life on Mars. The Rovers were scheduled to land in the same location on the Red Planet in January 2019. Thanks to a highly intelligent navigation systems, the rovers would travel for several miles across the Martian landscape. The European spacecraft would use a ground-penetrating radar to locate subsurface features associated with the past presence of water. It would then drill as deep as two meters below the surface to extract samples for in-situ analysis.

Russian involvement

All plans for the ExoMars mission in 2016, along with the follow-on launch in 2018, ran into trouble by 2011. NASA failed to secure funds for the procurement of the rocket to launch the orbiter and the EDM spacecraft and possibly for the already long-delayed ExoMars rover. As a result, in October 2011, European space officials were quoted in the Western media as saying that Russia had been "invited" into the project in exchange for... providing a heavy-lifting Proton rocket to launch the troubled US-European mission in 2016. According to European space officials, Russians would be "compensated" with the "right" to install their experiments onboard the EDM and ExoMars spacecraft and access the scientific return from the missions.

These proposals were controversial, given the fact that Russia had long abandoned the use of the Proton rocket for science missions, due to its high cost and the commercial demand for the workhorse vehicle. After 1996, all Russian planetary missions had been redesigned to fit onto the Soyuz or Zenit launchers.

Not surprisingly, the European proposal triggered an initial rebuke from the Russian space agency. On Oct. 16, 2011, the Izvestiya newspaper quoted First Deputy Head of Roskosmos, Vitaly Davydov, as saying that the idea had not been exactly constructive. "It can hardly be called a proposal -- just give them a rocket and that's the end of it," Davydov said, "We are not magicians, so we could simply launch somebody else's vehicles for nothing, for which we would be given some sort of information. Moreover, this information is of interest of the Academy of Sciences. If the Academy of Sciences proves that it is very important information and worth the cost of that launch vehicle, then we could negotiate. However so far we have not seen that." (In Russia, the Academy of Sciences formulates the space science program and applies for funding from Roskosmos).

A similar reaction came from the head of the agency's TsNIIMash research institute, Gennady Raikunov, who happens to be a member of the joint Russian-ESA working group. Upon learning about the US-European proposal from the Izvestiya reporter, Raikunov said that none of previous discussions with the Europeans had considered any joint Mars missions and no such proposals had been received.

Russians mull proposals for participation in ExoMars

Despite this initial embarrassment at the political level, the Russian scientific community seemed to be interested in the project. Oleg Korablev, a leading planetary scientist at the Moscow-based Space Research Institute, IKI, told Izvestiya that the European spacecraft could be used as a carrier of Russian experiments and as a data relay station for (future Russian) missions. Then, in November 2011, came the disastrous launch of the Phobos-Grunt mission, putting in doubt the very ability of the Russian key and only planetary spacecraft developer -- NPO Lavochkin -- to lead ambitious projects. On November 14, Korablev participated in a meeting of the Space Council at the Russian Academy of Sciences, which considered Russian participation in the ExoMars project. The endorsement of the Russian participation in ExoMars by the Space Council was considered absolutely crucial for the approval of federal funding to purchase Proton.

During the meeting, Russian space scientists formulated "minimum" and "maximum" concepts for possible Russian participation in the 2016 ExoMars launch. Both options included the installation of Russian-built scientific instruments on the 2016 orbiter. These instruments would derive from previous Russian science payloads, which had previously flown onboard NASA and ESA probes. However, much more ambitiously, Russian team decided to propose its own landers for the 2016 mission. Although a Proton rocket with a Block D upper stage could carry an extra payload, Russian scientists hoped to convince their European counterparts to drop ESA's 700-kilogram landing demonstrator and replace it with multiple Russian landers. IKI scientists hoped to revive landers which had originally been developed for the ill-fated Mars-96 mission. One lander would be a small-size penetrator with an inflatable heat shield, developed in cooperation with the Finnish Meteorological Institute. It would carry a miniature weather station. The second type of lander would be based on a small octagonal platform landing with the help of inflatable bags. Russian scientists hoped to acquire a state-of-the-art seismometer developed by the French Space Agency, CNES, to conduct cutting-edge studies of the Martian interior. CNES had already been working on the installation of the seismometer onboard NASA's Insight spacecraft.

A critical meeting between European and Russian teams on possible cooperation in the ExoMars mission was scheduled for November 18, 2011.

ExoMars mission timeline

2016 January: A Proton rocket with a Block D upper stage to launch the Trace Gas Orbiter for the ExoMars project from Baikonur.

2016 October: The Trace Gas Orbiter to release landing spacecraft into the atmosphere of Mars and enter orbit around Mars.

2018 April: A NASA Atlas rocket to launch European Space Agency's long-delayed ExoMars rover and a smaller NASA rover (Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher, MAX-C)

2019 January: A US and a European rovers to land on Mars.

Page author: Anatoly Zak; Last update: January 15, 2012

Page editor: Alain Chabot; Last edit: November 22, 2011

IMAGE ARCHIVE

A 1-to-4 scale model of the Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module of the ExoMars project displayed at Farnborough air show in 2010 and then scheduled for launch in 2016. Copyright © 2010 Anatoly Zak