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Russia considering option to explore Mars taking into account unaccomplished ESA mission

In July last year, the head of the ESA Josef Aschbacher announced on Twitter that the agency's board of governors had decided to terminate cooperation with Roscosmos on the ExoMars program

© Sergei Bobylev/TASS

MOSCOW, March 26. /TASS/. Russia’s Roscosmos state space corporation and the Russian academy of sciences is considering a possibility to explore Mars taking into account the groundwork by the ExoMars 2022 mission, a representative of the state corporation told TASS.

"Specialists of the state corporation Roscosmos and the Russian Academy of Sciences are studying the possibility of exploring Mars, taking into account the groundwork done within the ExoMars project, including the possibility of attracting foreign partners," the press service noted.

Earlier, the European Space Agency (ESA) categorically rejected Russia's proposals to launch the ExoMars mission in 2024 or 2026, the state corporation specified. Roscosmos also added that it is aware of ESA's plans to launch the rover without Russia's participation in October 2028.

"Considering that the entire world science has lost the ExoMars-2022 mission, and also that the Russian scientific instruments (ADRON-RM and ISEM) installed on the European rover of the ExoMars-2022 mission will be dismantled as part of the work on mutual return of equipment, we can only wish our colleagues from ESA to successfully launch the Mars rover in October 2028 without our participation," they added.

In July last year, the head of the ESA Josef Aschbacher announced on Twitter that the agency's board of governors had decided to terminate cooperation with Roscosmos on the ExoMars program. At that time, Roscosmos announced that Russia could implement its part of the project at the national level or with partners from friendly countries.

In November, Roscosmos Director General Yury Borisov told TASS that ESA had completely abandoned cooperation with Russia on Mars exploration. He stressed that neither the scientific community of Europe nor Russia would benefit from such a step.

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