Europe’s first Mars rover mission is now on its fourth rocket: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy
NASA confirmed Thursday that SpaceX will launch the European Space Agency’s Rosalind Franklin Mars rover, perhaps as soon as late 2028, on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
So why is NASA deciding which rocket will launch a flagship European Mars mission? It’s a long story involving the search for extraterrestrial life, crippling political hatchets, and of all things, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
You can trace the history of Europe’s Rosalind Franklin mission back nearly a quarter-century. A few years after NASA landed its first rover on Mars in 1997, the European Space Agency came up with a plan to send its own mobile robot to the red planet. The European rover was part of a program named Aurora, and officials hoped to launch it in 2009. Russia would have supplied a Soyuz rocket to send the rover on its way.
