Europe Suspends Joint Mars Mission with Russia

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the devastating effects of the war that has been going on for about three weeks continue to affect the whole world in many areas of life. This war, in which thousands of people lost their lives, cities were bombed, innocent people ‘did their lives’ even if they survived, and had to flee their countries and homes, also brought sanctions decisions in almost every sector.

The world’s giant companies in the sectors ended their services in Russia one by one, offices in the country were closed, product sales were stopped. In other words, while the war stopped life in Ukraine with bombs, a difficult process began for the Russian people with the sanctions of companies and institutions. Of course, the scientific world was also negatively affected by all these events.

European Space Agency suspends joint Mars project with Russia

Previously NASA and Roscosmos astronauts and cosmonauts are currently working on the International Space Station they have come to the fore; In fact, a video shared by a Russian media organization became the agenda and created controversy. Now, in the shadow of the ongoing discussions, the European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that it has suspended the Mars project called ExoMars, which it carries out jointly with Russia.

In the statement made by ESA, “The Executive Council of ESA, which met in Paris on 16-17 March, evaluated the situation arising from the war in Ukraine regarding ExoMars. “The current impossibility of carrying out the ongoing cooperation with Roscosmos on the ExoMars rover mission to be launched in 2022 has been unanimously recognized, and the Director-General of ESA has been instructed to take appropriate steps to suspend cooperation activities in line with the decision taken.”

Noting that the work continues to eliminate the problems caused by this rover mission, which is one of the important steps taken regarding Mars, the statement also said, “After the decision to withdraw Roscosmos’ personnel from the European Space Port in French Guiana, the planned launch by Soyuz All missions have been suspended”.

With the ExoMars program, two space agencies would work on astrobiological data such as water and traces of life on the Martian surface. After these explanations, what kind of processes the task will go through and how it will be implemented is not clearly known at the moment.