PARIS - Europe's planned lander and rover mission to Mars in 2016 should
be substantially cut back to fit within its likely budget constraints, and the
downsizing should occur as soon as possible, officials from the French space
agency, CNES, said Jan. 28.
They said
that while the cuts will be painful for everyone, it's better to redesign
the mission now rather than risk cost overruns and possible program
delays later on.
Addressing
a press briefing here, CNES's deputy director for science, Richard Bonneville,
said French support of the mission, called ExoMars, remains solid. But he said
as currently designed, ExoMars will not fit into the budget likely to be
approved by European Space Agency (ESA) governments when they meet late this
year to review a fresh program proposal.
"I
fear that it will not be possible" to build ExoMars as it
is currently planned, Bonneville said.
Meeting
last November, ESA governments, as expected, refused to endorse a proposal to
spend 1.2 billion euros ($1.6 billion) on ExoMars. In an informal
survey of support, these nations - led by Italy, France, Germany and Britain -
said they could spend about 850 million euros.
ESA was
ordered to look for ways to reduce the size of ExoMars and, above all, to seek
international cooperation - from Russia, the United States and elsewhere - in
the amount of about 200 million euros. Key to that international participation
would be a Russian Proton rocket, provided free of charge, to replace the 150
million euros or more ESA would need to spend for a European Ariane 5 vehicle.
France is
ESA's biggest backer of Ariane 5 and in the past has lobbied ESA governments in
favor of a rule forbidding the use of non-European rockets for European
government missions. ESA has stopped short of adopting such a policy, but in
2005 its governments agreed that European vehicles should have an automatic
preference.
Stephane
Janichewski, CNES deputy director for policy, said in a Jan. 29 interview that
France did not rule out the use of Russia's Proton vehicle for ExoMars if the decision
was part of a broader program of science cooperation with Russia.
But
Janichewski said even with the Proton vehicle and a future U.S. participation,
it is doubtful that ESA governments will be able to fund a billion-euro
version of ExoMars. He said it would be more prudent to make the
program cuts now than to take the risk of missing the 2016 launch window.
advertisement
