FAQ: The ‘rebirth’ of ESA’s ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission

What is the ExoMars programme?
The ExoMars programme comprises two missions. The Trace Gas Orbiter, launched in 2016, is providing the most detailed inventory of atmospheric gases to date from Mars orbit. It also provides data relay services essential to transmit science and operational data and commands from/to the surface of Mars. The second mission will be the Rosalind Franklin Mission that focuses on the Rover and its Mars surface operations. The mission architecture consists of a Carrier Module to bring the mission to Mars, and an Entry Descent and Landing Module inclusive of Landing Platform designed to allow the rover’s safe deployment and egress.

What is the objective of the ExoMars programme?
The ExoMars programme addresses the question of whether life existed or is still present on Mars. It uses the Trace Gas Orbiter to study the atmosphere from orbit, and the Rosalind Franklin Rover to explore the surface and subsurface.  ESA’s Rosalind Franklin Rover has a unique scientific potential to search for evidence of past life on Mars thanks to its drill and scientific instruments. It will be the first over to drill 2 m below the surface, acquiring samples that have been protected from surface radiation and extreme temperatures. The drill will retrieve soils from ancient parts of Mars and analyse them in situ with its onboard laboratory.

The mission will also serve to demonstrate key technologies that Europe needs to master for future planetary exploration missions. This includes the capability to land safely on a planet, to move autonomously on the surface, and to perform drilling and sample processing and analysis automatically. The rover will use novel driving techniques including wheel-walking to overcome difficult terrains, as well as autonomous navigation software.

What has been the impact of the invasion of Ukraine on ExoMars? 
The war in Ukraine has had a big impact on ExoMars. The spacecraft was ready to move to the launch campaign in Baikonur in April 2022, but was halted because of the invasion and the subsequent termination of the cooperation with Roscosmos, with whom the mission was partnered. The knock-on effect has vast implications: the built flight hardware needs to be returned to each of the former partners, and then ESA’s elements will need maintenance and refurbishment, while new ESA developments and technologies are now required to fill the void of the elements originally provided by Roscosmos. A new mission opportunity had also to be defined, with an identified launch opportunity in October 2028.

The impact on the team and the disappointment for what happened was tangible, as a lot of effort had been spent in preparing this long-awaited mission. Nevertheless, the rationale and the political implication have been shared and well understood, and the team quickly engaged in studying new possible scenarios to rescue the mission. The scientific validity of ExoMars remains intact, and the value and quality of the built flight hardware ensure a continuation of the program. Five more years are now in front of the ESA and European industry teams to re-build and re-qualify the spacecraft. ExoMars is being re-shaped for this new enterprise, with new forces and energies joining the project team, once again fully motivated and focused on setting out the next steps.

When can Rosalind Franklin Rover be launched?
It will take at least 3-4 years to build and qualify a new European lander. Then it is down to launch windows. The best opportunities to launch to Mars occur every two years when Earth and Mars are optimally aligned. The earliest launch opportunity for the Rosalind Franklin Mission has been identified as 2028, which will see a two-year transfer to Mars. This balances the time needed to build the necessary mission elements with a good mission scenario of landing in 2030. The time of arrival on Mars is important, as we need to ensure at least six months of operations before the start of Mars’ northern hemisphere fall and winter when the atmosphere is generally more dusty, and when Mars’ global dust storms may happen. In this respect, it is better to adopt a longer transfer profile (two years) and land in a favourable time to perform the rover mission, than to make a shorter trip that brings the rover earlier to Mars, but too close to the start of the Global Dust Season, an event where the survivability of the rover cannot be guaranteed.

When will the Rosalind Franklin rover’s first science be available?
We can expect the first data from the rover to come to the Rover Operations Control Centre in Turin, Italy, already in October 2030 soon after landing. The rover will deploy and egress to the surface of Mars within ten sols after touchdown, starting immediately the commissioning of its equipment in parallel to initial scientific exploration such as acquiring images of the terrain. The first deep drilling is expected about one month after landing.

What are the next steps for preparing the missing elements needed for the 2028 mission?
The team have started a program of maintenance and refurbishment for the existing flight hardware, but there will be the need for some adaptations and design upgrades to cope with the new launcher interfaces and the new mission conditions.

The design of a new European lander has also started, assuming reuse of a significant amount of the European flight equipment that had been built for the Russian Descent Module that is now planned to be recovered from it. There is a plan to re-use in the new Lander the qualified onboard computer, the radar doppler altimeter and the parachute system that had been developed for the previous version of the mission. The rest will be redesigned and built by European industry. This will include the aeroshell, the landing platform, the landing module and the rover egress system.

The throttleable propulsion system used for the final lander deceleration prior to landing on Mars, the radioisotope heater units used to heat up the rover once on Mars, and the launcher to bring the mission to Mars, all need to be reconsidered as well.

Will the lander still operate as a science platform?
In order to achieve launch in 2028, the design of the lander will be simplified and the landing platform will be designed only to bring the rover to Mars and enable its deployment and egress. While the new Entry Descent and Landing Module will carry engineering sensors and some cameras to validate Europe’s Mars landing technology, the new landing platform will not be equipped with dedicated solar arrays nor with its own science complement. The lander will cease to operate a few sols after landing, once the rover has secured its solar arrays deployment and communication with Earth.

Who are the prime contractors and countries in Europe involved in ExoMars so far?
ExoMars is a very large project that involves Thales Alenia Space (Prime contractor in Turin, Italy), Airbus Defence and Space (Rover Vehicle prime contractor in Stevenage, UK), OHB (Carrier Module prime contractor, in Bremen, Germany). Leonardo (Italy) provides the drill system. A consortium led by Thales Alenia Space in France provides the parachute system. In addition, about 60 other industries are involved, and most ESA Member State countries are involved, with Italy as a prime programme participant. The Rover Operation Control Center which will control the surface mission has been built in ALTEC Torino (Italy).

Will NASA contribute to the new mission?
NASA’s Mass Spectrometer, which is part of the Mars Organic Molecule Analyser payload (MOMA), is onboard the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover. NASA is developing plans, subject to receiving funding, to provide to ESA additional contributions which include the launch service and elements of the propulsion system needed to land the Rosalind Franklin rover at the earliest feasible opportunity, as well as the radioisotope heater units for the rover.

What is happening to the European instruments on the original Russian lander, and the Russian-led hardware on the rover?
The two Russian instruments on board the rover will be dismounted and returned to Russia together with the rest of the Russian Descent Module hardware. ESA is considering the possible replacement of at least one of these two instruments, the infrared spectrometer, with a European unit. The neutron spectrometer will not be replaced.  The new lander will not have a scientific package.

Will the technology on the rover be outdated by the time we launch?
No. In fact, the technologies represented in the Rosalind Franklin rover will remain relevant as compared with the existing and planned ‘competition’ on Mars thanks to its capability to extract 2 m deep samples from the Mars soil. No other mission is yet planned to take up this technological challenge. The rover’s mobility capabilities, notably six-wheel steering and ‘wheel walking’ are also novel. Any obsolescence of parts will be taken care of with appropriate refurbishments during the development of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Mission.

What is the storage lifetime of the different ExoMars elements?
The storage lifetime can be long if you can afford regular maintenance and parts replacement activities. In the case of the Rover and other parts brought forward from the 2022 mission to the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Mission in 2028, we are confident that it will be possible to find ways to maintain all the hardware for the new launch window and subsequent operations on Mars.

Does the new timeline mean there will be further parachute tests?
The parachute system is fully qualified, with a US supersonic parachute (US Airborne manufacturer) and a European subsonic one. The validity of the qualification will of course be verified with respect to the new entry, descent and landing mission parameters, including the new lander mass, and remaining test parachutes could be tested to confirm the longer storage of the flight parachutes.

What, if any, is the impact on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) as a data relay for ExoMars rover?
TGO fuel reserves are compatible with three more decades of operations, and thus there is no reason to assume any changes to the TGO being the primary data relay service for the Rosalind Franklin rover. TGO currently relays the majority of data from Mars surface missions, for example from NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. TGO will also serve as additional data relay for the Mars Sample Return campaign.

Are the Russian-led instruments still being operated on TGO?
There are four instruments on TGO: two European-led (the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) and the Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery (NOMAD) spectrometer) and two-Russian led (the Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS), and the Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector (FREND)). The data provided by these instruments are made publicly available via ESA’s Planetary Science Archive for worldwide science communities to use.

Both ACS and FREND include European components and have international science teams. The FREND instrument includes a dosimeter – a sensor measuring the ionizing radiation dose experienced during a Mars mission, and of particular interest therefore to human exploration of Mars – which was provided by Bulgaria. The ACS instrument includes some subsystems contributed by France, and its international science team includes scientists in at least ten countries.

The scientific mission of the Exomars TGO was not part of the cancellation of the cooperation on the ExoMars 2022 Rover and Surface Platform mission.

Is TGO still using Russian ground stations to downlink data?
Yes. An agreement is in place for their use between the Agencies. The downlinked science data are for use by the global science community.

What is the impact on the overall timeline for ESA’s Moon/Mars exploration programme, also with regards to human exploration ambitions?
The circumstances surrounding the delay of ExoMars has triggered activities to accelerate Europe’s ambitions in space exploration. While ExoMars is facing a rebirth, the launch delay until 2028 serves as a trigger to further develop European autonomy, allowing us to invest in the European industry needed to acquire the technologies we have not yet mastered. This will be critical in ensuring European autonomy for future robotic and human missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

ESA already has expertise in orbiting Mars (Mars Express is in operation since 2003), and with the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (launched 2016). ESA is also already a key international partner in Mars robotic exploration. In parallel to ExoMars, the Mars Sample Return Campaign (a partnership with NASA) proceeds with NASA’s Perseverance rover already caching samples on Mars ready for the follow-up mission to retrieve in the 2030s. ESA is contributing to the follow up missions by providing a Sample Transfer Arm (STA) to NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL). STA will pick up the tubes of martian rock and soil samples, and transfer them to the rocket on board SRL to launch them into Mars orbit, contained in an Orbiting Sample (OS) container. ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter will ‘catch’ the OS in Mars orbit and return it to Earth.

Partnership exploration campaigns to low-Earth orbit and the Moon continue through the International Space Station, and with the Artemis missions to lunar orbit. The uncrewed Artemis I mission with ESA’s European Service Module powering Orion to the Moon launched successfully in 2022; the next mission will carry four astronauts to lunar orbit and back to Earth in 2024, with the third mission landing astronauts on the Moon. The space ‘Gateway’ will be the next structure to be launched after the International Space Station, assembled and operated in the vicinity of the Moon, offering a staging post for missions to the Moon and Mars.

These partnership missions are fundamental steps on Europe’s roadmap to autonomy. ESA has ambitions to develop independent and sustainable European capabilities to bring humans to the Moon in the 2030s, and to prepare the horizon goal of Europe being part of the first human mission to Mars. In 2022, ESA’s new generation of astronauts were selected, who will continue European science and operations on the International Space Station and beyond.

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