Europe’s ExoMars Rover Faces an Indefinite Delay Following Sanctions Against Russia

The European Space Agency (ESA) has indefinitely postponed its ExoMars program with the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos. The dispatch of the ExoMars rover, presently known as the Rosalind Franklin rover, was supposed to launch sometime in September 2022.

The delay is the third time after it was previously scheduled for launch in 2018, but technical issues forced the launch to be pushed back to 2020. However, another issue with parachute testing occurred that year, delaying the rover’s launch by two years.

Fate again said otherwise. The tragedy of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began last February, disables ESA from continuing its cooperative mission with Roscosmos, which plays a critical role in the project’s delivery of the rover and surface platform to Martian soil.

A tough decision on the ExoMars program

The Rosalind Franklin rover is part of the ExoMars program that supports other Mars missions to determine whether life ever existed on this rocky red sphere. The rover will traverse the Martian surface and study its depths to collect samples for analysis in an onboard laboratory.

Russia’s participation in carrying out this mission is really quite vital, given that the program is led by ESA and Roscosmos. Russia has built the Proton rocket to carry the ExoMars payloads as well as a landing platform for the rover.

Not to mention Russian equipment and radioisotope heating units aboard the ExoMars rover. This decision on the ExoMars program is certainly hard for ESA and profoundly regretted as many years of effort have been put into the mission.

“It’s a disappointment for the people involved in the project. It was an agonizing decision for the council to make,” said the head of human and robotic exploration at ESA, David Parker, according to SpaceNews’ report.

“As an intergovernmental organisation mandated to develop and implement space programmes in full respect with European values, we deeply deplore the human casualties and tragic consequences of the aggression towards Ukraine,” ESA said in a press release. “While recognising the impact on scientific exploration of space, ESA is fully aligned with the sanctions imposed on Russia by its Member States.”

Not the end of the mission, yet

But ESA does not seem to surrender to reality. The ESA council delegated its Director-General, Josef Aschbacher, to conduct an industrial study in search of alternatives. One option is to try again with NASA. ESA took on this project alongside NASA around a decade ago, but it was eventually handed over to Roscosmos because the US space agency withdrew from the program.

As SpaceNews reported, Aschbacher said, “What we really need to do is to look into these options. The options in terms of Europe alone or Europe with other partners.” For now, according to Aschbacher, NASA has shown its willingness to support them.

However, if the situation in Europe recovers and ESA’s relationship with Roscosmos can continue as usual, it is not impossible for the two agencies to undertake this launch mission. Parker stated that with a significant reconfiguration, the launch might be feasible in 2026 or 2028.