Europe and Russia’s robotic mission to Mars is delayed until 2022

Europe and Russia have decided to push back the launch of their joint robotic rover to Mars until 2022, rather than launch this year as originally planned. More testing is needed on the vehicle’s parachutes ahead of the launch, according to the European Space Agency (ESA), and there isn’t enough time to get all of that work done before the launch window in July and August. “We have together accepted the advice that launching this year would mean sacrificing essential remaining tests,” Jan Wörner, the director general of ESA, said during a press conference. “This is a very tough decision, but it’s, I’m sure, the right one,” he added.

This is the second major delay for the rover, which is a critical piece of the ExoMars mission — a partnership program between ESA and Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos aimed at figuring out if Mars ever hosted life. Originally, the rover, named after the famous chemist Rosalind Franklin, was meant to launch in 2018, but it was pushed until 2020 due to delays in delivering the scientific payloads. Now, the parachutes needed to land the vehicle on Mars are to blame. Last year, two high-altitude drop tests here on Earth damaged the parachutes, with some even tearing while they inflated.

ESA wants to do two additional parachute tests ahead of the mission, but they won’t occur in time to allow a summer launch to happen. “This will be a little bit later than we hoped we would get it, but obviously, until these tests are successful, we have remaining risk,” Wörner said. Additionally, some of the electronics inside the vehicle that carries the rover down to the surface need to be returned to their suppliers for troubleshooting. The final software for the mission is also delayed, and engineers don’t have enough time to test it out before the summer.

And if that wasn’t enough, Wörner admitted that the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic is playing a role in the delay. “To say coronavirus is the one and only reason, that would be not at all fair,” Wörner said. “But of course, now in this situation, we see that the coronavirus has also an impact on the preparation. Because people from different places of industry in Russia, in Italy, and France cannot move easily as in the past.

” Now, the earliest option to launch the Rosalind Franklin rover is 2022, thanks to how Earth and Mars orbit the Sun. The two planets only skim close by one another every 26 months, giving scientists a limited window to launch spacecraft to the Red Planet. With a launch window opening up this summer, multiple countries including the US, China, and the United Arab Emirates are launching spacecraft to Mars. But since ExoMars cannot make the deadline, the next opportunity to launch is between August and October 2022.