ESA Suspends Cooperation with Russia on ExoMars Mission, Launch Delayed at Least 2 Years
PARIS (ESA PR) — 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. While recognising the impact on scientific exploration of space, ESA is fully aligned with the sanctions imposed on Russia by its Member States.
ExoMars
ESA’s ruling Council, meeting in Paris on 16-17 March, assessed the situation arising from the war in Ukraine regarding ExoMars, and unanimously:
- acknowledged the present impossibility of carrying out the ongoing cooperation with Roscosmos on the ExoMars rover mission with a launch in 2022, and mandated the ESA Director General to take appropriate steps to suspend the cooperation activities accordingly;
- authorised the ESA Director General to carry out a fast-track industrial study to better define the available options for a way forward to implement the ExoMars rover mission.
Space Transportation
Following the decision by Roscosmos to withdraw their personnel from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, all missions scheduled for launch by Soyuz have been put on hold. These concern essentially four institutional missions for which ESA is the launch service procurement entity (Galileo M10, Galileo M11, Euclid and EarthCare) and one additional institutional launch.
Consequently, the ESA Director General has initiated an assessment on potential alternative launch services for these missions, which will include a review of the Ariane 6 first exploitation flights. A robust launch manifest for ESA missions’ launch needs, including for spacecraft originally planned for launch by Soyuz from Kourou, will be submitted to Member States.
The International Space Station
The International Space Station Programme continues to operate nominally. The main goal is to continue safe operations of the ISS, including maintaining the safety of the crew.
Way forward
Based on a first analysis of technical and programmatic impacts on all other activities affected by the war in Ukraine, the Director General intends to convene an extraordinary session of Council in the coming weeks to submit specific proposals for decision by Member States.
About the European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (ESA) provides Europe’s gateway to space.
ESA is an intergovernmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
ESA has 22 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania are Associate Members.
ESA has established formal cooperation with six Member States of the EU. Canada takes part in some ESA programmes under a Cooperation Agreement.
By coordinating the financial and intellectual resources of its members, ESA can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country. It is working in particular with the EU on implementing the Galileo and Copernicus programmes as well as with Eumetsat for the development of meteorological missions.
19 responses to “ESA Suspends Cooperation with Russia on ExoMars Mission, Launch Delayed at Least 2 Years”
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Looks like a job for SpaceX and its broomsticks!!
It certainly does, but my guess is the Europeans will go to great lengths to avoid that. Would certainly be interesting if it comes to calling in SpaceX for a few of their launches.
Heck, we had the Russians lift our astronauts for about a decade when we were between launch vehicles…
There is still the small issue of replacing the Russian lander. Unless ESA lands the ExoMars rover in a Starship launched during the 2026 launch window, presuming the Starship is operational by 2024. There isn’t a Mars entry and landing lander available before the 2030s with either an ESA Mars lander or a JPL lander.
I’ll bet there are at least three companies that could throw together an entry vehicle and lander by the 2024 launch window. FH for Earth launch.
Could think of only one company that can put together a Mars lander big enough for the ExoMars rover never mind the time frame. That is SpaceX with their Red Dragon proposal which is no longer considered by SpaceX. Who move on to Starships landing on Mars after 2026.
Currently the only entities able to landed vehicles on Mars is JPL and CNSA (China National Space Administration) along with maybe Roscosmos. As in a rover embarked on a Mars lander.
So who were you thinking of that can put together a Mars lander by the 2024 launch window?
I was not thinking of one company in particular, rather the fairly widespread knowledge of how to do the individual requirements. Of course it can’t be done with normal types of ESA or NASA oversight which becomes some level of obstructionism to a fast company. As you say, SpaceX is the only company that currently has or could almost instantly have hardware to do the job. I am thinking a level or three down without recommending a particular company(s) or approach(s).
Several years ago during the Lunar Lander Challenge, three small teams put together vertical landing vehicles capable of extended hover. Armadillo, Masten, and Unreasonable each had single digit employee totals. Since then SpaceX and others have demonstrated vertical landings of larger vehicles from higher altitudes. I believe the institutional knowledge is there for the landing portion if a company is willing to move fast and let the chips fall. With the right leadership for the task, Blue Origin would be able to create the lander portion. Others probably could as well if $ufficiently motivated.
For the atmospheric entry, I don’t have a specific player in mind either, just that reentry is fairly well understood for Earth and I believe much of that knowledge transitions to Mars.
IMO, the difficulty of the rover portion is frequently overstated. There are hundreds to thousands of companies around that can do remote vehicles and likely dozens to hundreds that can do some level of autonomous ones. Designing for the more difficult conditions on Mars is the issue. I believe it can be done in fairly short order by a few companies if they willing to do the job.
SpaceX has all the individual pieces to do the job. Clearly the front runner in any rational plan. I just believe that many other individual companies and universities have more capability than is currently obvious. JPL is clear front runner for Mars just as SpaceX is front runner on Launch and some other goodies. I just don’t see the problem as intractable as it seems on the surface.
No, Martian EDL (Entry, Descend & Landing) is unique to Mars. Not much is applicable from EDL methods for Earth.
Agree that Martian rovers isn’t that hard. Provided that the rover builders can get hold of RHUs (Radioisotope Heater Unit) from the government. Along with either the ability to program rad-harden CPUs (PowerPC deviated with 300 MHz clock speed) or assemble some sort CPU array with redundancy for operations in the radiation environment of Mars.
JPL don’t have the resources needed to work on any additional Martian project for at least a decade. They have too many other projects in the pipeline.
Unless the US government funds individual companies and Universities for a long period of time and at a higher funding level than currently. Those companies and Universities simply don’t have the resources to developed a Martian rover, never mind a Mars lander.
IMO, no one will put together a new Martian lander for the 2024 Mars launch window.
Agree no one is going 2024. Agree that it is a serious job to get right. Possibly disagree on just how difficult the whole package might be. It seems to me that many of the Mars systems suffer from the Starliner syndrome of too much simulation and not enough busted knuckles engineering. Or I think a Starship approach might work by other entities. I am not current enough to know exactly which ones have the right mindset and capability at this time. Given reasonable funding of course.
Edit 5 hours later. Entry velocity is about 2/3rds that of reentry from LEO, so I believe the initial entry shouldn’t be too bad except for the extreme accuracy required for that thin atmosphere. I also believe that landing on rockets is fairly well understood by now. Where your point is rock solid though is the descent from near orbital velocity to comfortable landing speeds. That thin atmosphere is not going to be as much help as one would like on large entry vehicles. Dropping from Mach 15? to subsonic is going to be a bear for a dense cross section. A lot of fuel or some serious deployable decelerators or both.
SpaceX uses the novel method of sideways Mars reentry for Starship. The reentry heatshield is the entire side of a Starship. Resulting in fluffy cross section. Of course the Starship have to do a powered pitchup maneuver to vertical orientation before touching down.
By the way deployable decelerators has not shown to worked with the last few tests run by NASA.
Sounds like it should work. We will have a better idea of how well after a few Starship reentries from LEO. The numbers before they hit 30 km AGL will be especially telling with the similarities to Martian density at the ground. If it does, I would expect imitators just as the nine engine configuration seems to be more popular.
Just for clarification. I am not a Mars fan. OTOH, I don’t wish to detract from those that are. The ones that want to go or enable those that do are not my enemies or anything, they just have different priorities.
The concern I have mentioned a few times is the dependence on a single company, even if it is SpaceX. Right now there is nobody in their league. I note that in the 1950s the American auto industry had a similar lack of peer competition. Theoretically, Boeing and Lockheed=ULA, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman should be pounding on the doors. That they are not is distressing. Starship seems like the wave of the future. I would be happier if there were other players drafting them into the turns just in case they spin out.
But remember, only NASA has been successful. All Russia has is a decades long record of failure on Mars spacecraft. Mars is not as easy to land on as the Moon is.
Hence the maybe.
Elon Musk has stated he hopes to send a couple of cargo Starships to Mars over the next couple of Mars launch opportunities. I am sure they could squeeze it on board with all the supplies they plan to preposition on Mars.?
It will be more than a couple of Starships for every upcoming Mars launch window, IMO. SpaceX uses a hardware rich approach
However SpaceX isn’t landing anywhere near the ExoMars landing site. Of course they will happily added a Starship to their Mars manifest to accommodated ESA’s requirements for a fee. The question is ESA willing to relied on SpaceX to get their rovers to the Martian surface.
For the money that they would save hiring a Starship they could build a dozen rovers and just have them fan out from the landing site, doing some real exploration.
More likely just one extra rovers at the most. Reminder that the launcher of record is a Proton-M with a Briz-M upper stage that is a bit more expensive than an expendable Falcon 9.
Well that’s too bad. Like boycotting the Olympics, some of our best and brightest have to carry the load of having their dreams dashed or at the least suspended for years. Nevertheless, there’s no way one can just carry on business as usual with Russia now. The ESA is doing the right thing, and good luck to them as they try to come up with the best plan for moving forward
This is good news because the most important thing is that Putin’s fascist regime will not earn millions of dollars from the launch of the Proton.
its a good thing. its time to completely dissolve all our relationships with the Russians…particularly in space. let them eat rubles