Paris. The European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Thursday the suspension of cooperation with Russia, forcing it to quickly seek alternatives for launching its next missions, in particular to Mars.
The mission ExoMars It was scheduled for this year, but in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ESA, in a statement, “recognized the impossibility of maintaining current cooperation with (the Russian space agency) Roscosmos.”
ExoMarswhose objective was to land an autonomous exploration vehicle on Mars (rover), could be delayed until 2026.
ESA’s executive council commissioned its director to carry out a rapid study to relaunch ExoMars and look for alternatives for four other missions.
“It is a very bitter fact for all space enthusiasts,” reacted the head of Roscosmos, Dmitri Rogozin.
Russia will be able to send its own exploration ship to Mars in a few years, he assured.
“Yes, it will take a few years (…) but we will be able to carry out this research mission alone from the new launch site of the Vostochny Cosmodrome,” he assured.
A mission dotted with incidents
ExoMars was scheduled to launch the Mars-bound rover in September with the help of a Russian launcher and lander.
Until now, ESA mission launches depended on the use of the Russian Soyuz launcher from the European spaceport of Kurú, in French Guiana.
Roscosmos suspended Soyuz launches from Kuru in reaction to European sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine. He also fired his team, made up of about 100 engineers and technicians.
Initially planned for 2020, the launch of ExoMars had already been postponed to September 2022 due to the pandemic.
The ESA rover, Rosalind Franklin, was to be launched from Baikonur (Kazakhstan) and reach Mars thanks to the landing platform Kazachokalso Russian.
The firing window to Mars opens every two years. The mission is impossible “at least until 2026,” explained ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher.
Cooperation with the US NASA “is an option,” he said.
Other ESA missions that rely on the use of the Soyuz launcher were also suspended. These are two satellites for the European Galileo location constellation, part of the scientific mission Euclid and the European-Japanese Earth Observation Mission EarthCARE.
The situation is difficult because one of the alternatives to replace the SoyuzThe rocket Ariane 6You have a full schedule.
That rocket has yet to put a French military observation satellite, CSO-3, into orbit, and the mission will be delayed a year because of the cancellation of Russian services.
The greatest symbol of space cooperation with Russia, dating back to the 1990s when the Soviet Union fell, remains the International Space Station (ISS).
The ISS basically has two segments, one American and one Russian.
The head of Roscosmos recently warned of the effect of the sanctions on his own plans. The Progress spacecraft, for example, serves to keep the ISS in its orbit.
Aschbacher on Thursday ruled out an impact on the security of the ISS. “Operations are stable and secure,” she said.
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