Europe at Mars: Are we nearly there yet?

You have to wonder sometimes whether it is a rollercoaster that Europe plans on sending to Mars rather than a rover – such are the ups and downs and the sweeping curves on its ExoMars project.

ExoMars: Another evolution beckons

The rover was originally envisaged as a small-ish technology demonstration mission which could show that Europe was able to land on the Red Planet, trundle around to interesting places, and drill beneath the surface.
The science would concentrate on looking for signs of past or present life. But the concept for achieving all this has gone through iteration after iteration.
Now we hear that the finished design for ExoMars, which was presented at the end of last year, will have to be re-written once more.
Engineers are being asked to scope something new – bigger perhaps, better perhaps, but something new… again.
The idea of a European exobiology rover at the Red Planet was first mooted in 1999, and after a series of studies its formal implementation as a project was approved in 2005 by European Space Agency member states.
But almost immediately, the robot concept started to grow in size as the ambitions for what it could and should ...