Cancelled as a mission to Mars, a British robotic concept must now adopt lunar ambitions instead.
Esa has proposed to European research ministers that they fund a big freighter capable of delivering cargo and payloads, including roving vehicles, to the Moon, starting at the end of this decade.
Airbus had invested in new ultra-clean production facilities in Stevenage. They were used to produce a previous Mars rover called Rosalind Franklin, which is still waiting to be launched to the Red Planet, and would have been employed again to assemble the next wheeled robot. The idea is the samples will then be caught in orbit by a European satellite and ferried home, to arrive in 2033.
"Programmes don't like cost and risk and so finding a way to balance out the cost and risk by undertaking the mission without the sample fetch rover makes a great deal of programmatic sense," said David Parker, Esa's director of human and robotic exploration.Artwork: The "fetching" will now be done by Perseverance, and if needs be by drones
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