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ESA's ExoMars Successfuly Lifts Off From Baikonur (esa.int)

Posted by timothy on from the nougat-on-the-outside dept.

vikingpower writes: The European Space Agency's second mission to Mars, ExoMars, was successfully launched from the Baikonur launch pad today. ExoMars will search for traces of life, either past or present, on the Red Planet, and is the precursor to a more full-fledged mission to Mars in 2018, comprising a rover. It consists of an orbiter and of Schiaparelli, a lander built by European industry and scheduled to land in October this year. Both missions are cooperations between ESA and RosKosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency. If one of them met their ultimate goal -- proving there is or was life on Mars — the excitement here on Earth would be unimaginable. Mark Whittington adds a link to The Guardian's coverage and a bit of detail: The Russian-made launch vehicle lobbed a probe into space, the Trace Gas Orbiter, that will enter orbit around Mars later in 2016 and search for methane in the Red Planet's atmosphere. Methane can have a number of sources, but one of them is the waste product of microbial life. Both the Mars Express orbiter and the Mars Curiosity rover have detected some measure of methane, which could be produced by geological processes as well.

1 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. im sure the call was open for america to join by nimbius · · Score: 0, Troll

    ESA: Hey america! we're going to start a new mission to mars and we wanted to know if youd be up to help?
    NASA:has anyone seen the budget for climate change research? We sent darrel out ages ago to the copier but since we cant afford to replace the lights around here the grue might have gotten him.
    ESA: w-well it seems like youre a little busy i guess...
    Russia:: did you call america to see if they want to come along on the new mission?
    ESA: theyre uh, working on a different mission i think. its okay though, maybe next time.
    Russia: da. I spoke with America last week. Theyre working on some kind of wall? or the healthcare again? maybe I wasnt paying attention. The man on the phone just kept telling me he "guaranteed" they were working on things and that america would be great again.
    ESA: nothing about mars though? Russia: They asked if I could rescue Matt Damon if we went...
    ESA: *sigh*

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