Frida Space

I presume there are budget constraints... as with most major space missions, ExoMars has gone way over the original budget cap already. Originally the plan was to launch ExoMars on top of a Soyuz. Then NASA was asked to join, the mission was heavily expanded and an Atlas V was chosen to replace the Soyuz. Then the James Webb Space Telescope killed NASA's partecipation in ExoMars. ESA couldn't do everything by itself so it asked Russia, at the time a minor partner, to replace NASA. A contract was signed and what were then supposed to be one Atlas launch (TGO and a lander) and one Proton launch (the MAX-C rover) became two Proton launches. In fact, so far the project is costing so much that Esa hasn't even yet fully funded the 2018 rover. Buying two Ariane 5s would simply cost too much, I'm assuming.

I guess @Nibb31 also refers to the fact that in recent years the Proton rocket's success rate has fallen to 90% -- which is quite low as standards nowdays go. Especially considering the statistic that in the last 5 or something years there has been at least a failure per year, and for very stupid reasons too. I think some of the European guys at the ExoMars project think the same, I read a scientist tweet "I feel a bit more relaxed now about our launch" after a successful Proton launch, which sounds as if he would have chosen another rocket, if possible (which obviously isn't)... I think and hope everything will be fine, but I'll be watching the ExoMars launch with slightly more tension than other very important launches. But seeing as Italy is the biggest contributor to ExoMars, I really, really, really want to see this go well! It will be so exciting to know that a bunch of people a few miles away from my house are controlling something on the surface of Mars... we Europeans haven't been able to have that feeling so far

I'm not sure if you're referring to ExoMars or previous missions, but in the case of ExoMars, it's not a customer-client thing, it's a full cooperation. In fact, ESA is not paying for the Proton rockets, Russia is -- consider it a form of "entry fee". If Russia wants to partecipate, then it must provide (without any costs for ESA) the two launches. In exchange, they get to put some instruments on the European probes and get full access and co-property of all the data. It's a cooperation, so if the Proton launches or anything else goes wrong, then it's both parties' fault, if you want to see it that way

ExoMars has landed!... in Baikonur. Which is still good news, I guess. The two probes (the Schiaparelli EDL demonstrator and the Trace Gas Orbiter, TGO) left the Thales Alenia Space facility in Cannes, France, in the evening of December 17th, and arrived in the early hours of the following day at the Turin facility, in northwest Italy. The first of the three Antonov flights carrying hardware and support crew took off from Turin on December 18th, and arrived at Baikonur later that night. The second Antonov, carrying Schiaparelli, departed Turin on December 20th, arriving at Baikonur in the early hours of the next day. The third Antonov, carrying TGO, ground support equipment and support crew left Turin on December 22nd and arrived in Baikonur in the early hours of the next day. As of writing, both spacecraft have been unloaded and have reached their cleanrooms. TGO was also powered on for the first time in Baikonur; everything looks OK.

That's true... Before you posted this I updated my previous post, adding that "nothing has really changed other than the economic side of it, which I'm not an expert in". I'm a pure science person, so I really don't know what this means, but I realize that economics is just as important, if not more, than actual science when it comes to governments

Nothing has changed really (aside from an economical point of view which I'm not an expert in and which I don't really care about). They just merged Russia's two biggest companies (URSC) and Roscosmos (the Federal Space Agency) into one, renaming it into Roscosmos (State Corporation for Space Activities). Russian contributions to the ISS, ExoMars and everything else will continue. It's nothing surprising, they decided it in July -- if it meant cancelling ExoMars or things like that, ESA would have already taken the relevant measures. If you've been following Russian news lately, you know that they've had many problems... they fired their head at the beginning of the year, I believe. Putin is trying a wide range of solutions to fix the quality assurance problems, corruption scandals and everything else. I hope this new Roscosmos will be better

Damn! You make my life hard If it was for me, I'd go for Io, Titan and Enceladus, I don't like Mars that much. But I have to admit that retrieving samples from Mars has a very big scientific potential, so my final choice would be: Mars sample return, Titan maria explorer and an Enceladus orbiter / plume-diver. I'm fascinated by Io and I definitely think it's more than worth of our attention; however, from a biological point of view, it's obviously the least interesting out of the four. The setting is 2021, which is basically in 5 years (and 5 days!!) time... call me a pessimist, but I wouldn't be too sure that a human mission to Mars would be that close. Maybe a manned flyby/orbital mission by the end of the 2030s, yes, but that's still 15-20 years away (from the 2021 scenario, I mean). Rovers are cool and their labs are getting super technological and all but in certain things a human is still preferable (or at least, we like to think it is ). It's very difficult to make predictions, I guess everything is up to one's optimism (or lack of)

Definitely a Mars return mission to retrieve Mars 2020's samples (that's actually the real plan, but no dates yet). With all the upcoming Mars missions (that by the 2020s should be completed), like the ExoMars fleet, Mars 2020, InSight (pending rescheduling), a sample return mission is really the next step. We'll have to level up our exploration of Mars sooner or later! For the other two missions, I have three favourites: a Titan acquatic explorer (either a submarine or a floatation device or whatever), an Io orbiter and an Enceladus orbiter (something like an Enceladus Life Finder [a Discovery 13 proposal] on steroids). I think we should really get some real science going on around all of these interesting outer solar system moons. Obviously the priority is Europa, but that's already covered by the Clipper probe (or whatever it will be called). At the same time, it will be important to keep exploring the inner planets and asteroids and comets and possibly more KBOs, but I believe we should keep those destinations (which in my opinion are just as fascinating as Europa or Enceladus) to the other programs, Discovery and New Frontiers.

Interesting article by Vane Kane:

Assessing the leak could take months. They've already tried to fix it five or six times and the leak is still there, so they obviously aren't sure what to do now. Althought they said it's unlikely, they haven't been able to rule out a design issue yet, so it's possible that the instrument simply can't be fixed because it hasn't been designed very well in the first place. Even if they found the root cause, they would need to fix the instrument, go through a lot of environmental testing and even test the testing equipment itself to see if it works fine. Plus the rocket is already fully built and, from what I understood in yesterday's teleconference, fully assembled too. I don't think it's as simple as adding a booster or too. Someone yesterday, Grunsfeld if I recall correctly, stressed out that "we ordered a particular rocket in a particular configuration", implying that it can't be upgraded or things like that. In addition, they don't have much money left for the mission, so maybe it's economically impossibile to upgrade the rocket. Plus, like @sgt_flyer was saying, launching out of the transfer window would mean reaching Mars at a different velocity and at a different angle. Becuase InSight will dive straight into Mars' atmosphere without slowing down into an orbit before, those two parameters (velocity and angle) will be critical, and InSight might not have enough Delta V to correct them if they don't launch during the window.

This would be great! Planning flybys for me has been such a tedious job. However I suggest putting this in some other forum where it can get proper attention! Good luck on your project

Yes that was the same website I was talking about Rosetta will die of lack of power in September 2016. Current plan is to crash-land it on the surface.

John Grunsfeld saying they're evaluating whether to delay the lunch by 26 months or to cancel all together the mission if it is found that delaying it would go over the cost cap (it's a Discovery class mission).

NASA's John Grunsfeld going through the mission scientific's objectives and the SEIS seismometer. First leak in hermetically cealed compartment found in August, then two more (one in close-out tube to pump out the vacuum). Then in cold cycle testing they found it was still leaking. "Unfortunately we don't have time to identify the leak in time. In one sense we don't have a decision to make, because we simply aren't ready. The probe was at Vandenberg waiting for the instrument, assembly of rocket had started. Shows how difficult it is for engineers. We've had failures in the past, the answer to the question "are we being overcautious" is "no". We've made final determination not to go, now we have to decid how to make the spheres vacuum-tight." CNES' Marc Pircher: "First leak was 10^-6 (what unit?), second leak was 10^-11, so very small leaks. We're sorry but we decided with all our partners that we're not ready to go. We want to be sure that we're launching something that works." Now John Green stressing out how InSight will perform "decadal-level science" and how "CNES has been so wonderful to work with and bla bla bla" and how "we need to obey Kepler's laws and we won't be able to make it in time for the March window." Official press release: www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-suspends-2016-launch-of-insight-mission-to-mars-media-teleconference-today

Teleconference starting www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html NASA's Dwayne Brown called it an "official decision".

To everyone asking wether this first stage will be re-used (via SpaceFlightNow)

According to Finnish media, Rosetta established a 10-second link with Philae during which it downloaded 51 data packets, including status reports. It seems possible as long as the quality of the link was pretty good: in two previous contacts, Philae had uplinked only 80 telemetry packets in 20 minutes (very poor quality) and then more than 300 in just 85 seconds (very good link). Still waiting for ESA/DLR confirmation. UPDATE: The unconfirmed wake-up of Philae occured at 03:17 am CET (GMT+2) on December 22nd.

First images from Dawn's lowest and final orbit, LAMO, at 385 km from Ceres. Resolution is approx. 4x better than in previous orbit, HAMO (1470 km). Images taken via Dawn's backup FC (Framing Camera) as part of a test to verify its status.

A few relevant tweets: From SpaceNews' Peter B. de Selding (@pbdes) CNES President Le Gall: We're not giving up resolving NASA Mars InSight lander instrument leak; we have till 5 January to nail it down. We're not 100% sure that the leak Mars InSight SEIS instrument leak isn't leak-measure issue rather than actual leak. We took 3 InSight SEIS leak measures, all w/ identical results. That's odd if it's a real leak; could be false positive. UPDATE: many news outlets (Florida Today, SpaceNews, Wired UK, Science Magazine...) have reported that the launch has officially been delayed to 2018. However CNES' President said that if the problem is fixed by January 5th they will be able to launch on time.

That's why it only takes 3300 m/s of Delta V to get in LKO compared to the roughly 9500 m/s needed for LEO

From SpaceNews: "After thorough examination, NASA managers have decided to suspend the March 2016 launch of the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission,” NASA said Tuesday morning in a notice to journalists. “The decision follows unsuccessful attempts to repair an air leak on a key component of the mission’s science payload." NASA press briefing coming up at 1530 EST | 2030 GMT.

Original title: InSight 2016 launch SCRUBBED So yea... NASA's next Mars mission, the lander InSight, won't launch in March 2016 becuase of a leak in the vacuum compartment of the seismometer, the main instrument onboard, provided by French CNES. This means at least a 26-MONTH delay. InSight's original launch window was March 4th to March 30th. Press briefing to follow at 1530 EST.

Via Emily Lakdawalla (GIF)

Yea, that's how I figured it too. The two reentry burns on the right side give it away pretty much.

Full launch video is now up: youtu.be/MRLPGptow80 And the full webcast too: youtu.be/O5bTbVbe4e4