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Reuters / European Space Agency file
The Europe-Russia mission hopes to take scientists beyond NASA's finding that the surface of Earth's neighboring planet had the right mix of elements to sustain life, by drilling 6 feet below its radiation-hit surface for samples.
By Alissa de Carbonnel, Reuters
MOSCOW — Europe and Russia signed a deal on Thursday for a joint Mars mission which will bore beneath the Red Planet's surface for soil samples they hope will solve the mystery of whether there is life beyond Earth.
Europe's space agency had hoped to work with NASA on the two-spacecraft ExoMars mission but turned to the Russians after the U.S. agency pulled out due to budget shortfalls.
The announcement comes amid heightened excitement over the search for life on the planet in our solar system most like Earth after scientists said analysis from NASA's own mission rover, Curiosity, showed Mars had the right ingredients for life.
European scientists say the two-stage mission, with the two craft to be launched in 2016 and 2018, will pave the way for what NASA has described as the "Holy Grail" of Mars exploration: a separate mission to return dirt samples from the Red Planet.
"Curiosity learnt us a little bit, ExoMars will bring us a step further, but bringing back those samples to Earth you can do 10 to 100 times more analysis," Rolf de Groot, head of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Robotic Exploration Coordination Office, told Reuters.
"That is a goal of everybody who works on Mars exploration."
The Europe-Russia mission hopes to take scientists beyond NASA's finding that the surface of Earth's neighboring planet had the right mix of elements to sustain life, by drilling 2 meters (6 feet) below its radiation-hit surface for samples.
"NASA is also drilling, but 2 centimeters deep," de Groot said, referring to the ongoing Curiosity mission. "It's a completely different story."
"ExoMars, by drilling 2 meters into the ground, might hope to identify really the big molecules because that would be a direct indication of the presence of life or that life once existed on Mars."
He said the ESA's Mars rover would also be equipped with a much more advanced laboratory than Curiosity has, so would be able to carry out more detailed analysis.
Russian rockets
Russian Space Agency Roskosmos will provide the rockets to launch the ExoMars — short for Exobiology on Mars — mission and will also design the descent module and surface platform.
Europe turned to Russia after NASA left the $1.3 billion project in February 2012, citing a budget crunch. The ESA and Roskosmos agreed to cooperate last April, but talks to work out the details dragged on for nearly a year.
"This event was a long time in the making and took a great deal of collaboration," Roskosmos head Vladimir Popovkin said after signing the deal with ESA Director Jean-Jacques Dordain in Paris.
Russia's involvement in the ambitious mission could boost the status of its once-pioneering space agency after a litany of costly and embarrassing failures.
The delays in agreeing the mission hinged on the extent of Russia's participation, according to Russian space experts who said Moscow had seemed to reach its goal of full partnership.
"The agreement implies that Russian scientists and engineers will become full-fledged participants in all the international scientific and technical groups," Roskosmos said in a statement.
What was to be Russia's first deep space mission in more than two decades — the Phobos-Grunt mission to scoop up soil samples from Mars — was among five botched launches that damaged Moscow's reputation as a reliable launch partner.
European governments have so far committed 850 million euros to the mission. The funding cap has been set at 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) but delays and changes to the scientific aspects of the project are expected to drive up the price tag.
Even though NASA pulled out, it will still provide radio communications equipment, an important organics experiment and engineering and mission support.
The United States also plans to follow up its Curiosity rover with an identical probe, to launch in 2020. It has not yet decided if it will cache samples for a future return to Earth.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2011 ranked a Mars sample return mission as its top priority in planetary science for the next decade. The long-term goal of the U.S. human space program is to land astronauts on Mars in the 2030s.
(Additional reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Pravin Char)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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A U.S. manned mars mission by 2030? My guess is that a privately financed mission will beat that date...
You could be right, but my bet is on China. With a government controlled economy and the ability to squash any dissent, they could fun such a project and follow through with no fear of political opposition. And while it sounds like I might like that idea, I can assure you, I do not. Just because it gives a small group of people more solid control, doesn't mean single party rule is any good.
Russia, has a lot to learn about long range rockets. They have had 5 failures so far, and lost all of their rover type vehicles and probes, designed to explore Mars.
Not learn so much as remember. I think they will get there.
Let Robert Zubrin and his Mars express team have a run at it and we could be there in 10-20 years. He seems to have most the bugs worked out. Maybe NASA can go on vaction for a bit and see what happens
I have always thought that the first real settlment on Mars should be called Zubrin.
Umm..... it was supposed to get soil samples from.... Phobos.
Correct. I noticed that, too. It was never intended to land on the surface of Mars.
It seems to me that the Republicans are ceding the race to space (Mars etc) to Russia and Europe with their budget cutting.
Republicans didn't gut NASA, shutting down the Orion/Aries project, cancel the ESA/NASA Mars rover mission or defund NASA's long term robotic exploration program.
Can you guess who was behind this? The records are out there. There's no denying it. NASA even had a bake sale to protest his sacking of the agency that was on all the networks.
The name starts with 'O' and ends in 'a'... and he lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...
The Orion project was way over budget and 10 years behind schedule.
Obama cancelled the program. It was underfunded and the only OTHER option would have been to try to fully fund the effort. And that was a fight his heart was not in. So you can solidly blame both sides on this. Setting an ambitious goal without funding it, and cancelling the underfunded program instead of fighting for funding. Either way, the Moon will belong to China.
Well, we knew that Obama was never going to reinvest in NASA for any mission like this... even if NASA had the stones to carry it out to begin with.
And if you think that the Republican House would give him the money to do it you need a reality check.
Rather than believing we can and should be first in all things Mars - I know that our limits will always be constrained by whatever we as a country are willing to budget and spend on anything. I say this believing that space exploration is a fantastic adventure worthy of more than we spend on it. It is not so terrible to me to ponder a wider field of world cooperation in tag teaming our way into new chapters of knowledge.
I wish them well and look forward to more of what we seem to be up to - the science of nature and geology on our own planet from space, studying our solar system's star, a voyage to Pluto, continuing to follow two satellites as they have just about left the solar system, new space telescopes, paying more attention to asteroids - to name a few - AND Mars missions to find life elsewhere.
Not only would a world space agency be nice it may also be needed in the future to save the human race assuming we have enough warning for when the doomsday rock comes. Not to sound to paraniod but it is a question of when not if we get hit again. What I don't understand as why the world leaders can't see it . We need more funding for space exploration and N.E.O spotting andless pending on better ways to kill people
Thanks for letting me rant
BBB
There's Martian sandpits or sinkholes of possibly volcanic origin that appear to lead into shadowed, underground caverns. I would explore these.
http://www.marspedia.org/index.php?title=Caves
http://freethoughtblogs.com/zingularity/2011/08/21/sinkholes-on-mars/
Russia has a very poor record of getting things to Mars in one piece.
True. But it's not impossible.
In ten or twenty years there will be a mad race between Euro, Russia, China, the U.S., and maybe one of the middle-east countries to get established on Mars. A race for prestige, and for getting started in building structures with Earthlike atmospheres, temperatures, and facilities for sending people there to do more development. It'll likely take a century, but Mars will be to the 22nd century like the western hemisphere was to the Europeans in the 17th century.
I am more concerned that we are abdicating our starting position, and might miss that race, much like China missed the 17th century race.
I agree, and it's sad.
The USA does something and we do that thing very well: We land things on Mars. We've had a few failures, but Viking, Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix, and Curiosity are testaments to what we do well.
We know how to navigate to Mars. We know how to pass through it's atmosphere, and we now know how to put heavy payloads down safely on the surface. Our country is the very best at doing this. If we had the will, and the desire, we could have humans on the surface in under a decade. We could have the first colony built by the time we hit 2030.
We could do it. But we won't. We need to keep building bridges to nowhere in one congressional district. We need to spend a quarter of every year's budget on tanks, planes, weapons, and ships to fight a world war against countries who spend pennies to every dollar we spend. We need to bail out big businesses who make poor decisions and then declare themselves too big to fail. We need to support corporate lobbying efforts for more tax concessions as they minimize the support they give to their own employees. America is far to busy widening the gap between the extremely wealthy and the dwindling middle class and growing poor to care about exploration or science (the two things that made our country great).
Dennis, you say China will beat us to Mars. Sadly, I think you, sir, are correct.
I hope they plan on culturing these underground samples in sterile culture media, and even returning many of these promising samples back to the original lander site, where they can be transported up to Phobos for future pickup by a manned fly around mission to Mars, and eventually returned back here to Earth for further study. - Rick Carter