Editor's note: This page is no longer being updated, but will be preserved as a record. Click here for the latest information on Mars Express.Mars Express – ESA's mission to the Red Planet – was launched in 2003, marking the start of a new era for Europe in planetary exploration. Mars Express also marked the start of a cost-effective and innovative way of organising the teams and ground systems that comprise European space missions into the 'mission family' concept.Mars Express shares a great deal of commonality with Venus Express and Rosetta in terms of the spacecraft platform, several of the instruments and the ground segment. Due to this commonality, the spacecraft was built and launched in record time and at a much lower cost than previous, similar missions to deep-space destinations, and is now being operated in coordination with Venus Express to rationalise resources.

Editor's note: This page is no longer being updated, but will be preserved as a record. Click here for the latest information on the ExoMars mission.Establishing if life ever existed on Mars is one of the outstanding scientific questions of our time. To address this important goal, ESA has established the ExoMars programme to investigate the martian environment and to demonstrate new technologies paving the way for a future Mars sample return mission in the 2020s.There are two missions in the ExoMars programme: one comprises the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) plus an Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module (EDM), dubbed Schiaparelli, launched in 2016, and the other, comprising a rover, with a launch date of 2018. Both missions are in cooperation with Roscosmos.The 2016 ExoMars/TGO carries scientific instruments to detect and study atmospheric trace gases, such as methane. EDM contains sensors to evaluate the lander’s performance as it descends, and additional sensors to study the environment at the landing site.In addition to its prime science mission, the orbiter also carries a sophisticated radio relay capability provided by NASA. The Electra Proximity Payload (Electra) is a telecommunications package that acts as a communications relay and navigation aid.

Has life ever existed on Mars?

Editor's note: This page is no longer being updated, but will be preserved as a record. Click here for the latest information on BepiColombo.BepiColombo – ESA's first mission to Mercury – is based on two spacecraft: the ESA-led Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), a three-axis stabilised and nadir-pointing spacecraft with 11 experiments and instruments, and the JAXA-led Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), a spinning spacecraft carrying a payload of five experiments and instruments. The composite spacecraft will reach Mercury using a highly efficient, low thrust, electric propulsion system that will steadily propel it along a series of arcs around the Sun. With a launch in October 2018, the trajectory will also be modified by eight planetary flybys: of Earth in April 2020, Venus in 2020 and 2021, and then six times of Mercury itself between 2021 and 2025. BepiColombo will enter Mercury orbit in December 2025.