Europe's Mars Rover 'very unlikely' to Launch in 2022

[mosaix]

Europe's Mars rover 'very unlikely' to launch in 2022

The UK-built Rosalind Franklin vehicle is caught up in the diplomatic crisis over Ukraine.

www.bbc.co.uk

It's "very unlikely" the British-built Mars rover, Rosalind Franklin, will launch this year.

The European Space Agency (Esa) says the project is now at risk because of the worsening diplomatic crisis over the war in Ukraine.

The robot is part of a joint venture with the Russian space agency.

It's due to launch on a Russian rocket in September and land eight months later using Russian hardware, but this cooperation may now be hard to justify.
Esa said in a statement on Monday that "sanctions and the wider context" had put a big question mark next to Rosalind Franklin, which is named after the British scientist who co-discovered the structure of DNA.

 

[CupofJoe]

Sad but fairly predictable given the current [cannot be named] events.

 

[Pyan]

I can't see how this discussion can go without getting political - I'm afraid I'm going to have to close it for the moment. Hopefully it can be opened again to discuss the scientific aspects of the mission after the current situation is resolved.