Science | Space
ExoMars 2022 was to take off from Baikonur in September with the European rover Rosalind Franklin. His goal was to search for traces of past and present life on the red planet.
The war launched by Russia in the Ukraine will also have consequences in space. The European Space Agency (ESA) has suspended the joint mission with Russia that was to take off for Mars in September from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The ESA Governing Council, meeting yesterday and today in Paris, has taken the decision to cancel
Exo Mars 2022 “unanimously” in considering it impossible to maintain cooperation with Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, after the invasion of Ukraine.
The management of the supranational organization indicates in a statement that, in accordance with its policy of “developing and implementing space programs in full respect of European values”, it “deeply regrets the human victims and the tragic consequences of the aggression against Ukraine”. And he adds that, despite the “impact” it may have on space exploration, “it fully aligns with the sanctions imposed on Russia by its member states.”
The ultimate consequence of this policy is the suspension of the ExoMars mission, whose launch was scheduled for September and in which the European rover Rosalind Franklin was going to reach the red planet. The governing body of the ESA has instructed its director general, Josef Aschbacher, to take “appropriate measures to suspend cooperation activities” with Russia and has authorized him “to carry out an accelerated industrial study to better define the options available to perform the mission” now cancelled.
Russian rocket and landing platform
ExoMars is an ESA and Roscosmos exploration program made up of two missions. The first took off in 2016, since when a satellite orbits the planet whose objective is to understand the origin of Martian methane and other gases that could reveal biological or geological activity. The second, now suspended, was going to star the off-roader Rosalind Franklin. She was scheduled to take off from Baikonur and land on Mars aboard Kazachok, a Russian landing platform, to search for traces of past and present life.
The ESA assures that the program of the International Space Station -in which the Americans, Russians and Europeans, among others, collaborate- continues with normality. “The main goal is to continue the safe operations of the ISS, including maintaining the safety of the crew,” says the agency, which has made no reference to threats from Roscomos director Dmitry Rogozin of
drop orbital platformwhose engines are in the Russian segment.
The director general of ESA will convene an extraordinary meeting of the organization’s Governing Council in the coming weeks to present alternatives in all the activities affected by the war in Ukraine.
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