Europe ends its space cooperation with Russia, the ExoMars mission suspended

Published on: 03/17/2022 – 19:23 The European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Thursday the end of its cooperation with Russia, in response to the invasion of Ukraine. This rupture forced the ESA to quickly find alternatives for the launch of its next missions, in particular to Mars. The war in Ukraine has repercussions even in space. The European Space Agency (ESA) put an end to its cooperation with Russia on Thursday March 17, in response to the invasion of Ukraine. This decision leads in particular to the suspension of the Russian-European ExoMars mission. announced the agency in a press release, at the end of its executive council. The organization, which brings together 22 European states, also “deeply deplored the human losses and the tragic consequences of the aggression against Ukraine”. The ESA “is completely aligned with the sanctions imposed on Russia by its Member States”. “A very bitter event” The Russian agency Roscosmos had taken the lead on February 26: when the European sanctions were announced, it retaliated by suspending the activities of its Soyuz launcher from the European spaceport of Kourou, in French Guiana, and recalling the few hundred engineers and technicians who were installed there. The head of the Russian Space Agency, Dmitri Rogozine, has said Thursday regretting the suspension of the ExoMars mission. He called it “a very bitter event for all space enthusiasts” and “very regrettable”. others were from the Baikonur site in Kazakhstan. It is from this last place that a Russian Proton rocket was to carry the ESA rover, Rosalind Franklin, next September before the lander Kazatchok, also Russian, deposits it on Martian soil. Impossible “before 2026 “The mission, initially scheduled for 2020 and postponed due to the pandemic, is now seriously compromised, especially since the window of opportunity for the Red Planet only opens every two years. The Russian-European program cost 2 billion euros and was initiated by the Europeans 20 years ago: it is undoubtedly because of the immense work and budget invested that ExoMars was not canceled, explains Sylvain Rousseau, a journalist specializing in space issues, on the set of France 24. The ESA board suddenly authorized its director general, Josef Aschbacher, “to initiate an accelerated industrial study to better identify the possible options to advance the mission of the ExoMars rover”. Josef Aschbacher noted during a press briefing that a “launch this year is excluded” and impossible “at least before 2026”. He mentioned that “cooperation with NASA is also an option” to execute the mission. NASA was the first partner of the Europeans on this program, recalls Sylvain Rousseau, but the American space agency had put an end to its collaboration with the ESA in 2012, for lack of budget. “It was at this time that Europe allied with the Russians,” continues Sylvain Rousseau. All other ESA missions based on the use of the Soyuz launcher are also suspended, ESA said. in his press release. These include two satellites for the European location constellation Galileo, the scientific mission of the Euclid space telescope, the European-Japanese Earth observation mission EarthCARE and a military satellite on behalf of the France. For these missions, the head of ESA has “undertaken a review of alternative launch services”, which “includes a review of the first Ariane 6 operational flights”. The future European heavy launcher, which is to replace an Ariane 5 at the end of its life, is scheduled for a maiden flight by the end of 2022. This first flight is planned without commercial load. “Undoing what we have built with Russia “The need for an alternative launcher to Soyuz portends delicate arbitrations for the granting of “seats” on Ariane 6. The French military observation satellite CSO-3, which was to be launched at the end of 2022 by a Soyuz rocket from Kourou, should finally be put into orbit by Ariane 6, about a year late, said for example last Thursday the French Ministry of the Armed Forces. The important thing in this area “is to establish a rapid ramp-up” of the Ariane 6 launch rate, insisted Josef Aschbacher. The head of ESA has decided to hold “in the coming weeks” a an extraordinary council of the agency to submit to its Member States specific proposals to fulfill its missions. They involve “undoing what we have built with Russia” since the launch of ever closer cooperation by Western countries in the 1990s, after the end of the USSR. The greatest symbol of this cooperation remains the International Space Station (ISS), which essentially consists of two segments, American and Russian. The head of Roscosmos recently warned of the effect of sanctions on the Russian side, whose Progress spacecraft is used to keep the station in its orbit. Experts agree to minimize this threat, and Josef Aschbacher said Thursday that “operations there are stable and secure”. With AFP