Ukraine conflict jeopardizes launch of Europe’s first Mars rover

 The future of a €1.3-billion programme to explore Mars has been thrown into doubt by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR after the European Space Agency (ESA) said that launch of its rover this year is now “very unlikely”.

The plan to send a rover mission to Mars is the second part of the joint ExoMars mission between ESA and the Russian تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR space agency Roscosmos, and was scheduled to take off on a Russian rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, in September.

Following a meeting of ESA’s member states, the organization said on 28 February that the economic تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR sanctions imposed by Western nations on Russia and the wider context of the war made a 2022 launch unlikely. ESA’s director general will now analyse possible options on the way forward for the mission.

ExoMars aims to deliver Russia تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR and Europe’s first Martian rover, equipped with a 2-metre drill designed to detect any signs of organic life buried deep beneath the surface. This will be the third time the mission has been postponed from its تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR original planned launch in 2018. Each delay comes with mounting costs.

Painful delay

In its statement announcing the probable delay, ESA said it deplored “the human casualties and tragic consequences of the war in تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR Ukraine”, and than its decisions took into account not only its workforce but European values.

Not flying the ExoMars rover on a Russian rocket is “the morally right thing to do”, says Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St Louis, who is not involved in the mission. تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR But for the planetary science community, the delay will be “painful”, he says. The next launch opportunity would be November 2024, he adds. “That's a long time to wait for scientists who have worked on this mission for almost a decade already.” Early career researchers in particular, who are relying on its data, will be affected.

Continuing the mission might rely on adapting it to fly on another rocket. If difficulties arise there, “then perhaps the project overall will face cancellation”, Byrne adds. “A cancellation would be a blow to تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR ESA's program of planetary exploration, which is otherwise returning incredible findings about our Solar System.”

“If it will not be launched this year, it will not be launched ever,” says Lev Zelenyi, science advisor and former president of the Space Research Institute of Russian Academy Of Sciences in تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR Moscow, and a member of the mission. Zelenyi says that he understands ESA’s motivations, but thinks it is the wrong decision. “Tremendous efforts of scientists, engineers, technicians of many European countries, not even speaking about Russians, will be wasted.”

It would be difficult for ESA to remove Russia entirely from the project. Although in theory Europe has made the rover and Russia has made its descent module and تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR landing platform, there is “no clean line” between responsibilities of the two teams, ESA project scientist Jorge Vago, told Nature in 2016.

“ExoMars 2022 is unprecedentedly complex in terms of interfaces,” adds Oleg Korablev, a member of the ExoMars collaboration at the Space Research Institute. Adapting the craft to use a NASA landing device would take more than two years, he adds.

ESA and Roscosmos already collaborate on the Trace Gas Orbiter, the first part of the mission, which reached the Martian orbit in 2016. The TGO is designed to study Mars’s atmosphere but also act as a relay station for the rover. A spokesperson for ESA could not say what تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR impact of the situation would be on TGO operations.

Collaborations affected

The war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia have already affected other space-science collaborations. On 26 February, Roscosmos withdrew its staff from ESA’s main spaceport of Kourou in French Guiana, effectively ceasing launches on Russian Soyuz rockets. ESA uses Soyuz for medium-sized launches, including تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR satellites in its Galileo navigation system. ESA said it will assess whether upcoming payloads can be launched on other rockets or the Vega-C and Ariane 6, which are both set to fly for the first time later this year.

Sanctions could also affect Roscosmos’s upcoming Luna moon missions. ESA plans to contribute a landing camera to Luna 25, set to launch in July, and a navigation system, drill and mini-laboratory for Luna 27, designed to study the composition of soil near the lunar south pole. An ESA spokesperson declined to comment on تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR how the conflict might affect these plans.

As countries continue to shut down research collaborations with Russia, there could be a further division in space exploration between Western nations and a China–Russia collaboration. In a YouTube address on 26 February, director-general of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin announced that, in the face of sanctions, Russia will purchase any تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR microelectronics it needs for spacecraft from China.

The two countries also plan to collaborate in a raft of future projects, including building a human base on the Moon, according to China’s five-year plan for space.

Roscosmos has announced “a full-scale go-ahead” on collaborations with China, says Korbalev, and institute scientists are already working on an instrument for a Chinese asteroid mission. “Still, science تفسیر جواب آزمایش کرونا PCR cooperation takes years and dozens of years to establish,” he says, and the effect of the conflict and sanctions on scientific cooperation is “enormous”.