The European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos are preparing for the 2022 launch of the next mission in their joint ExoMars program, which is currently undergoing final testing before shipment to Kazakhstan for a launch in September next year.
The 2022 astrobiology mission will see the long-awaited Rosalind Franklin rover land on Mars with the help of the Russian Kazachok lander. The lander will also perform experiments on the Martian surface after deploying Rosalind Franklin as the two craft work together to search for signs of past life on the Red Planet.
ExoMars 2022 in final testing
After construction delays, missed Martian transfer windows, and the COVID-19 pandemic, Rosalind Franklin, Kazachok, and the other ExoMars 2022 mission systems have been completing important testing milestones ahead of shipment to Kazakhstan for launch on a Proton rocket next year.
Multiple unsuccessful parachute drop tests in 2019 and 2020 led engineers to redesign the system multiple times, leading to successful drop and deployment tests on June 24 and June 25, 2021. The new parachute design, if proven safe in additional tests, will be used to slow Kazachok and Rosalind Franklin during their descent to the Martian surface.
First high-altitude drop test success for #ExoMars parachute! 🎈👏👏
While all the data and footage are being analysed, enjoy the view!
🔴 Learn all the details about this complex series of tests that will take us #ForwardToMars: https://t.co/3SLN6v7n5K pic.twitter.com/nnz7caB84e
— ESA_ExoMars (@ESA_ExoMars) July 2, 2021
While testing of Rosalind Franklin and its associated landing systems has progressed, a test rover called the “Ground Test Model” (GTM) has been used by ESA to examine surface operations, science instruments, and terrain climbing/movement.
Testing with the GTM is performed at ALTEC in Turin, Italy. ESA teams have conducted testing with the rover’s NavCam, LocCam, PanCam, and CLUPI camera instruments, which will be used by Rosalind Franklin to traverse the Martian terrain.
Alongside the four camera instruments, ESA has also tested a variety of instruments that will be essential for collecting samples, drilling into Mars, and roving across challenging terrain. Instruments like WISDOM, MicrOmega, Raman, MOMA, and the large drill will all be extensively tested on the GTM to prepare ESA teams for the mission.
Outside of ALTEC, ESA has also completed balance testing with the entire ExoMars 2022 mission stack at Thales Alenia Space’s cleanroom facilities in Cannes, France.
To stay on a nominal trajectory during its journey to Mars, the ExoMars 2022 spacecraft, comprised of the carrier module, descent module (backshell and heatshield), Kazachok lander, and Rosalind Franklin rover, will spin at a constant rate of 2.75 revolutions per minute.
Balance testing ensures there is nothing inside and outside of the spacecraft that could cause it to move or “wobble” off course.
Rosalind Franklin and Kazachok are currently expected to ship to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the coming months. Once there, they will undergo final launch preparations, including encapsulation and mating with the Proton carrier rocket.
Rosalind Franklin and Kazachok
In 2001, ESA began the ExoMars program with a plan to send a rover to Mars in 2009 and a follow-on Mars Sample Return mission in the years following.
This original vision for ExoMars would ultimately be canceled; however, in 2009, the Russian Federal Space Agency and ESA signed a contract to work together on two separate Mars exploration missions. At the time, Russia was planning to send their Fobos-Grunt mission to Martian moon Phobos. That mission would launch in 2011, with an upper stage failure stranding it in low Earth orbit before destructive reentry.
In April 2011, the MAX-C rover, another ExoMars rover being developed alongside the ExoMars rover (now Rosalind Franklin) by ESA, was officially canceled, and it was decided that only one rover would be sent to Mars.
Concept art showing the preliminary design of the canceled MAX-C rover. (Credit: Lisa Pratt, Dave Beaty, Joy Crisp, Scott McLennan)
The ExoMars rover was to be developed by ESA and feature a multitude of instruments from other agencies, companies, and ESA partners. At the time, NASA was set to participate in the rover’s development and operations on Mars, but the FY2013 budget terminated NASA’s participation in ExoMars.
After Roscosmos became a full partner with ESA, the final ExoMars plan was laid out. The Trace Gas Orbiter, which had been part of ExoMars for several years, was to be launched before the ExoMars rover and lander — both of which would be primarily developed, constructed, and tested by ESA, with Roscosmos providing two Proton launches and several instruments for the spacecraft.
In March 2014, with a launch scheduled for 2018, the British division of Airbus Defense and Space, the builder of the rover, began acquiring critical components for its construction. Funding for the ExoMars rover was approved by ESA member states in December 2014.
During this time, the development and construction of the Russian Kazachok lander also began. Kazachok, set to be the descent vehicle that will carry and land Rosalind Franklin on the surface, will host 13 instruments that will study the surface environment at the landing site.
Rosalind Franklin preparing to roll off the top of Kazachok shortly after landing. (Credit: ESA)
In 2016, with the planned 2018 launch date creeping closer, ESA was struggling with scientific payload deliveries, and other goals for the mission were missing deadlines as well. Due to these issues, the ExoMars team announced they would be delaying the launch to July 2020.
As construction of the rover continued, one critical component of the rover was still missing — the name.
In summer 2018, ESA launched a public campaign to select a name for the rover. After reviewing submissions from the public, ESA announced on February 7, 2019, that the rover would be named Rosalind Franklin, a famed female scientist who researched and provided key contributions to the understanding of molecular structures in viruses, RNA, DNA, and more.
Following construction, the rover and Kazachok began an extensive testing campaign; however, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced work on the rover and lander to come to a halt, leading teams to miss critical deadlines needed to launch in 2020. As a result, the launch was delayed to 2022.
The GTM (Ground Test Model) explores the terrain of ESA’s Mars yard in Italy. (Credit: Thales Alenia Space)
The nine instruments Rosalind Franklin will carry include the Panoramic Camera (PanCam), Infrared Spectrometer for ExoMars (ISEM), Water Ice Subsurface Deposits Observation on Mars (WISDOM), Adrom-RM, Close-Up Imager (CLUPI), Mars Multispectral Imager for Subsurface Studies (Ma_MISS), MicrOmega, Raman Laser Spectrometer (RLS), and Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA).
Kazachok will carry 13 total instruments. These include the Lander Radioscience experiment (LaRa), Habitability, Brine, Irradiation and Temperature (HABIT), meteorological package (METEO-M), MAIGRET, Wave Analyzer Module (WAM), TSPP, interface, and memory unit (BIP), IR Fourier spectrometer (FAST), Active Detection of Radiation of Nuclei-ExoMars (ADRON-EM), multi-channel Diode-Laser Spectrometer for atmospheric investigations (M-DLS), radio thermometer for soil temperatures (PAT-M), dust particle size, impact, and atmospheric charging instrument suite (Dust Suite), seismometer (SEM), and the Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for atmospheric analysis (MGAK) instruments.
The primary goal of ExoMars 2022 is to search for signs of past life, which the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has been doing since 2016 from orbit. TGO “sniffs” the upper atmosphere of Mars for methane and other trace gases that could be evidence of past life.
The launch of the ExoMars 2016 mission with the TGO and Schiaparelli lander in March 2016. (Credit: ESA/Stephanie Corvaja)
ExoMars 2022 is scheduled to launch during a 12-day window in September 2022. Following liftoff, the ExoMars 2022 spacecraft (Rosalind Franklin, Kazachok, descent module, and carrier module) will coast through space for nearly eight months, waking up periodically to perform course correction burns and system health checks.
On June 10, 2023, the descent module will streak into the atmosphere of Mars and begin the entry, descent, and landing phase of the mission.
After entering the atmosphere, releasing the heatshield, dropping the rover and lander, lighting the lander’s engines, and touching down on the surface of Mars, Rosalind Franklin and Kazachok will begin surface operations.
ExoMars 2022 will launch on a Proton-M/Briz-M rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome and is expected to land in the Oxia Planum region of Mars.
(Lead image: Artist’s impression of ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover and Russia’s Kazachok lander. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab)