ESA ExoMars: French Concerns Throw Mission Plan Into Doubt

The U.S.-European Mars exploration program featuring launches in 2016 and 2018 is facing new turbulence following the French government’s refusal to endorse new spending until the 2018 mission is better defined and given a bigger budget, according to European government and industry officials.

The French space agency, CNES, had already signaled to its fellow European Space Agency (ESA) governments in late May that it needed more time to evaluate the impact of NASA’s decision to scrap a NASA rover in 2018 in favour of a joint NASA-ESA vehicle.

Lone among ESA governments taking part in the mission, CNES voted against forwarding ESA’s ExoMars program, which includes a 2016 Mars orbiter in addition to the 2018 launch of the rover, to ESA’s check-writing body, called the Industrial Policy Committee.

CNES’s concerns were apparently insufficient to prevent ESA’s Human Spaceflight and Operations Directorate, meeting May 26-27, from approving the new ExoMars configuration despite the many unknowns about the NASA-ESA rover.

Precise information on the rover’s cost and configuration, including the work distribution between ESA and NASA, will not be settled until October 2011.

ESA’s Industrial Policy Committee, which approves the agency’s expenditures, is scheduled to meet June 29-30 to approve a resumption of full ExoMars spending following a suspension of most work in April.

The work suspension was caused by NASA’s decision, announced in March, that it could no longer afford its own rover and would seek a single U.S.-European rover for the 2018 launch.

The Industrial Policy Committee had been expected to reopen the ExoMars financial spigot given the approval of the Human Spaceflight and Operations Directorate.

Given that France is a major partner and owns some of the most experienced manufacturers of aerospace equipment (EADS, THALES, etc.), it is uncertain whether the financial approval can occur. Something that ESA and CNES will be well aware of.

ESA officials had wanted to approve continued funding of ExoMars as soon as July 1 because of what they said were tight deadlines for the industrial contracting team working on the 2016 mission.

ESA’s ExoMars prime contractor, Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy, had said it needed to begin full-scale construction on the 2016 mission, which features a Mars telecommunications relay orbiter, this summer without waiting for the end of negotiations on the 2018 rover.

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