It seemed over, on March 17, 2022, when the European Space Agency (ESA) suspended collaboration with Russia and the Exomars program. And instead, thanks to NASA, Europe is still aiming for Mars. Thales Alenia Space has signed a contract with ESA to continue the activities that will lead Rosalind Franklin, rover made in Europe, to explore the subsoil of the Red Planet in search of traces of life. The announcement is from the same Franco-Italian company, a joint venture between Thales and Leonardo, which has signed a contract with a total value of approximately 522 million euros to prepare the mission for take-off in 2028.
Exomars has been in the icebox for two years: postponed several times, from 2018 to 2020, then postponed due (also) to the pandemic, it was finally suspended after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. To resume it, it is necessary to replace the contribution of Roscosmos (the Russian Space Agency), which had created the platform; find a new pitcher; find a solution for the landing (the last European attempt was not lucky, the Schiaparelli lander crashed in 2016). In short, NASA’s commitment is awaited, but it is not a given, on the contrary.
Here is the Exomars rover, the mission that will search for life on the Red Planet in 2028
video-component>
Update Exomars for 2028
There will be a lot of work to do between now and 2028. First of all, maintenance, the elements that will need to be fixed over time, also in view of the fact that we won’t be able to fly for another 4 years. It will be necessary to replace some parts of the rover that are more sensitive to the passage of time and review those of the “carrier”, the satellite that will carry Rosalind Franklin to Mars. Rosalind Franklin will have a new infrared spectrometer (Enfys) to analyze the composition of rocks, built in Wales, contributed by the United Kingdom Space Agency, which will replace the Russian one and which will be integrated into the rover. Rosalind Franklin’s flagship instrument (who, let us remember, is the scientist who discovered the double helix of DNA), is the drill built in Italy by Leonardo, capable of digging and collecting samples for analysis up to 2 meters deep .
Aerospace Logistics Technology Engineering Company
Marte, suburbs of Turin
by Bruno Ruffilli
Italy, with ASI, our space agency, is the largest contributor, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany. Thales Alenia Space Italia, as industrial prime contractor (it heads the European consortium which includes Airbus, ArianeGroup, Ohb and Altec) will have to design the descent module and the landing platform since the Russian Kazachok platform, which was already integrated with rover and ready to be shipped to Kazakhstan, it will no longer be usable. And this is where the American contribution should hopefully fit in.
NASA budget almost 50 million for Exomars
NASA was initially supposed to be an important partner in the Exomars program, but then it withdrew. ESA therefore went with the Russians, who had to provide the launch vehicle (a Proton rocket pushed Exomars 2016, the still operational TGO satellite and the Schiaparelli lander, which left on the spur of the moment) and the platform with scientific instruments. Now ESA has returned to turn to NASA with a series of requests. NASA itself reports them in the president’s budget proposal to Congress, a document made public in March: “…ESA has moved the launch to 2028 and requests that, in addition to the Moma mass spectrometer, NASA provide the launch vehicle, landing module descent engines, radioisotope heating units and system engineer support for the mission.”
Space
A nuclear rocket to go to Mars: NASA and Darpa study the fission engine
by Matteo Marini
The Moma, a mass spectrometer for investigating the composition of materials, was an instrument already foreseen as a NASA contribution. Which should now also provide the rockets to slow down the descent (the Americans are the undisputed authority when it comes to landing on Mars), radioisotope heating units for the new lander (they emit heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium to safeguard the instruments from the cold Martian nights) and this would require a launch from the USA because these radioactive devices cannot be exported.
The extraordinary photos taken by the Ingenuity drone on Mars, precious for future missions
The expression that was in the 2024 budget was “Nasa may contribute”, now it is “Nasa will contribute”, in that assertive indicative there is all the hope, for now. Because now we have to put the money into it. In the 2025 “budget” the US president asks for 49.2 million euros for NASA. However, to these will be added the launch service to be financed in the year of take-off but, assuming a carrier like SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, another 150 million must be added.
Congress will have to approve the appropriations. A year ago, when the 2024 budget was yet to be approved, the very powerful House Committee on Appropriations had given indication not to finance Exomars. They may change their minds, especially with a renewed Parliament, or they may not. At the bottom of the horizon of space exploration, the Moon is rising, not Mars. Plus there’s the Mars sample return issue.
NASA in hot water
It is a very ambitious goal towards which only the first steps have been taken. Send a rover to collect the capsules with the samples already left on the ground by the Perseverance robot in recent years; launch them into orbit around Mars; catch them with a European probe and deliver them to us on the landing (the Utah desert). On April 15, NASA announced that those samples they won’t arrive before 2040, instead of 2033, due to funding delays and cuts. The costs for Mars sample return have risen, from 4 billion dollars, to the monstrous figure of 10 billion (the same as the James Webb space telescope). Own Congress dramatically cut funding last year: NASA had requested 950 million, it obtained 483, almost half a billion less. Bill Nelson, the administrator of the American Space Agency, declared that it is “unacceptable to wait so long, in the 2040s we should land astronauts on Mars”.
So other avenues are being explored overseas. The program will be stripped down to become more economical, but it will need help from industry, Nelson said, to get it done. Yes, because China also wants to do the same thing and has declared that it wants to do it in 2030, to send samples of Martian soil (presumably) three years later, in 2033. Europe, through ESA and its director general , Josef Aschbacher, said he was obviously willing to provide full support and cooperation in the joint program.
The skepticism on the part of American politics (understandable, given the costs and delays) regarding Mars sample return is therefore clear. In a historical period in which the real short-term goal is the Moon, why should the United States get on Exomars and invest 200 million of taxpayers’ money between launch costs and instruments? The hope is that the prospect of being able to find evidence of alien life in the subsurface of Mars will be enough.
#Exomars #mission #objective #search #traces #life #Red #Planet
– 2024-04-23 02:29:48
