ESA ends cooperation with Russia to send a rover to Mars

July 13 () –

ESA has ended the collaboration with its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, to send a European rover to Mars aboard a Russian lander.

The ESA Council addressed the ExoMars Rover and Surface Platform mission –embodied in the Rosalind Franklin rover and the Kazachok lander–, acknowledging that “the circumstances that led to the suspension of cooperation with Roscosmos, the war in Ukraine and the resulting sanctions, continue to prevail.”

As a consequence, the Council ordered the Director General of ESA, Josef Aschbacher, officially end the currently suspended cooperation with Roscosmos on the ExoMars Rover and Surface Platform mission.

At a press conference on July 20, new ideas on the way forward with other partners will be given, and details will be announced soon, Aschbacher himself reported. on his Twitter account.

In response, the director of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, he said on his Telegram channel: “Has the head of the European Space Agency thought about the work of thousands of scientists and engineers in Europe and Russia that has been ended by this decision? Is he prepared to answer for sabotaging a joint mission to Mars?”

Rogozin adds: “I, in turn, order our crew on the ISS to stop working with the European ERA manipulator.” It is the European-made robotic arm that is installed outside the new Russian Nauka module of the International Space Station.