NEWS IN FOCUS SPACE Mars launch puts Russia- Europe team to the test Joint ExoMars mission launches lander and orbiter, with a rover planned for 2018. BY ELIZABETH GIBNEY will also be the first to examine the planet’s electric field. Those data will either Europe nor Russia feed into Martian climate models has ever successfully oper- and could allow scientists to better ated a mission on Mars’s predict future disturbances to com- Nsurface. Now the European Space munications on the planet, she says. CORVAJA/ESA STEPHANE Agency (ESA) and its Russian coun- terpart Roscosmos hope to mark a BIOLOGICAL STUDIES first for both organizations with the The higher-profile science — joint ExoMars 2016 mission, which including investigating hints of launched from the Baikonur Cosmo- Martian biology — will take place drome in Kazakhstan on 14 March. in the sky on board ExoMars’ Trace ExoMars 2016 consists of a lander Gas Orbiter (TGO). That phase will that will study the planet’s dust storms begin at the end of 2017, once the and an orbiter that will analyse its craft has manoeuvred into a circu- atmosphere, including looking for lar, 400-kilometre-high orbit. methane. The orbiter will also act While studying Mars’s atmos- as a relay for a Mars rover, due to be phere, the TGO’s major task will be launched in 2018. Each phase will test to follow up on evidence that the red the growing collaboration between planet contains methane, which has the two agencies, which have hinted been associated with active geologi- at further joint missions, including cal processes, as well as biological uncrewed and crewed Moon trips. ones. “Is there a seasonality to the ESA designed the orbiter and methane, or are the concentrations lander projects, but a Russian Pro- A Russian Proton rocket launches ExoMars 2016 from Kazakhstan. associated with particular types of ton rocket launched them, and they terrain, for instance?” asks John carry Russian instruments. “The launch is cru- the Curiosity rover to Mars in 2012. But it is Bridges, a planetary scientist at the University cial because it’s symbolic,” says Oleg Korablev ambitious, says Vago, and designed to show of Leicester, UK, who works on the TGO’s ste- of the Space Research Institute, Moscow, who that Europe can make a controlled landing on reo camera. The camera will use 3D images to is principal investigator for the Atmospheric Mars. Heeding lessons from Beagle 2 (Brit- chart geological features; a hydrogen detector Chemistry Suite on the orbiter. “It’s psycho- ain’s failed 2003 Mars lander that was oper- will map the planet’s subsurface water. logically very important.” ated by ESA), the module will use drag from The orbiter will also serve as a communica- ESA project scientist Jorge Vago adds: the Martian atmosphere to brake, then open tions platform, including for the ExoMars rover, “Hopefully this will cement a way of doing a parachute and finally fire its thrusters. Dur- which will break new ground — literally. The things that becomes the modus operandi for ing the last 2 metres, Schiaparelli will deploy a rover will drill up to 2 metres into the surface, when we do missions together.” Based at the honeycomb-like crash pad. where organic matter, which can be destroyed European Space Research and Technology The first lander to set down during dust- by surface radiation, may lie preserved. Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, Vago storm season, Schiaparelli will monitor pressure The rover project will require the Russian also works on the ExoMars 2018 mission. and temperature and image the approaching and European teams to work together to an ESA approved the ExoMars concept in 2005; landing site as it descends. On the ground, the extent unprecedented for ESA, says Vago. In a subsequent merry-go-round of collaborators conical lander has just 2–4 days of battery power the 2016 mission, their responsibilities are rela- eventually resulted in the Europe–Russia col- to perform experiments. tively separate, but in the 2018 mission, he says, laboration and ExoMars’s unusual two-stage Its tiny meteorological station DREAMS “there is no clean line”, and each design tweak format (see ‘Mission merry-go-round’). (Dust Characterisation, Risk Assessment, and ripples through the work of both teams. It is a The ExoMars 2016 craft — the heaviest Mars Environment Analyser on the Martian Surface) new experience for Russia too, says Korablev, mission ever launched, at 4,332 kilograms — will measure pressure, humidity, temperature, even though the country has long contributed is now bound for the red planet. A favourable wind speed and direction. This represents a scientific instruments to foreign space missions. alignment of Earth and Mars means that the unique chance to study dust circulation and “There are many problems, but there are always craft should reach orbit in 7 months; the orbiter hopefully unravel the mystery of why some problems on national projects too,” he says. and landing module, Schiaparelli, will separate storms on Mars go planet-wide, says Francesca This complexity, coupled with late-running before reaching the Martian atmosphere. Esposito at the INAF Astronomical Observa- instruments, delays in testing and a lack of The landing won’t involve anything as com- tory of Capdiomonte in Naples, Italy, and the cash, means that the 2018 rover mission plex as NASA’s sky crane, which delivered principal investigator for DREAMS. The lander could be delayed until 2020, says Vago. ESA’s 288 | NATURE | VOL 531 | 17 MARCH 2016 © 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved director-general, Johann-Dietrich Wörner, PLANETARY SCIENCE said in January that the 2018 mission needed more funding to meet its launch target, and the agency is expected to ask member states for the missing few hundred million euros at a NASA Mars woes meeting in December. Success with ExoMars 2016 could help to persuade European leaders to contribute. Bridges says that most scientists could delay missions will accept a delay as long as it means that all the instruments are on the craft and working. Korablev’s involvement with Mars missions Decision to defer InSight launch will cost US$150 million. has been an emotional roller coaster. He spent 10 years working on Russia’s Mars 96 orbiter, BY DEVIN POWELL led by the Paris Institute of Earth Physics, which failed to leave near-Earth orbit. He was can be repaired. also involved in a sample-return mission to the racks in an instrument designed Banerdt says that Sodern, the French Martian moon Phobos, which ran into prob- to detect earthquakes on Mars company subcontracted to build a vacuum lems, eventually crashing in the Pacific Ocean will add roughly US$150 million container to enclose the seismometer’s in 2012. “We put a great effort into ExoMars,” Cto the price tag of InSight, NASA’s next sensors, did not detect any problems with he says. “I almost don’t dare to say any words.” ■ mission to the red planet. But the agency connectors that are supposed to seal wires said on 9 March that it still intends to leading out of the vacuum housing. Only fly the spacecraft, raising questions when the instrument was tested in frigid, MISSION MERRY-GO-ROUND about how the unexpected expense Mars-like temperatures in December did NATURE The countries involved in the ExoMars mission, will affect other planetary missions cracks in those seals become apparent. The as well as the mission components, have changed multiple times since its conception. in development. project team tried to patch the problem, Although InSight’s launch — originally but persistent leaks remained. PAUL JACKMAN/ PAUL scheduled for this month — is now slated “It’s very frustrating,” says Banerdt. 2005 European Space Agency (ESA) approves ExoMars as a Europe-only, for May 2018, it is not clear whether the “I’ve been working on getting this kind of single-rover Mars mission. spacecraft’s faulty seismometer will be mission for more than 25 years, and every- ready in time. InSight seeks to investigate thing else on the project was going really Mars’s interior by measuring seismic activ- w e l l .” ity, as well as the heat that is escaping from 2008 Worldwide nancial crisis. the planet and the movement of its surface. FUTURE FIX “We’re really grateful that NASA has NASA has asked the JPL to craft a new, recognized the value of science we’re going hardier vacuum chamber. The agency’s 2009 Europe can’t go it alone; NASA to do and agreed to give us a chance to try it French collaborators will test the cham- oers to launch and land rover, and wants orbiter added to mission. Europe again,” says InSight’s principal investigator, ber at their own expense. “Personally, I am adds a second, stationary lander to Bruce Banerdt, who works at NASA’s Jet relieved to know that JPL will be taking mission plan because it wants to develop Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, responsibility for the vacuum chamber,” says landing capability. California. Lisa Pratt, a biogeochemist at Indiana The spacecraft was developed as part of University Bloomington. NASA’s Discovery Program, which funds The Mars InSight team is now re-running 2011 NASA has funding diculties, small, quick-turnaround missions whose landing simulations and recalculating orbits rumoured to be due to overrun of costs are capped at $450 million. Five pro- to account for the updated launch date. James Webb Space Telescope. posed missions are currently vying for a Some wonder chance to launch in the early 2020s. These “We’re really whether the mis- include a trip to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, grateful that take could cause 2012 NASA pulls out of ExoMars; two missions to Venus and a camera that NASA to tighten Roscosmos steps in, agrees to launch NASA has orbiter and lander, to launch and land would detect near-Earth objects.