14 DAY TRIAL // European Space Agency Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said during a press briefing held in Paris on January 17 that ESA is interested in conducting more missions together with the Russian Federal Space Agency (RosCosmos), other than the joint ExoMars venture.
The top ESA official said on Friday that the two agencies could cooperate in constructing space probes destined to investigate the Moon, Mars, or farther planets such as Jupiter. The organizations are already cooperating on the ExoMars project and in launching Soyuz rockets from the ESA Kourou Spaceport.
ExoMars is being developed as a double mission. It includes an orbiter, a lander and a rover, which will be launched via two different Proton-M heavy lift delivery systems, in 2016 and 2018, respectively, Space Fellowship reports.
Since budget cuts at NASA no longer allow the Americans to get involved with the ambitious space exploration projects that ESA is proposing, RosCosmos could step in to fill the void, Dordain implied.
At this point, RosCosmos is already considering getting involved with the ESA-led JUpiter ICy moon Explorer (JUICE) mission, which would focus on studying the Jovian moons Europa, Callisto and Ganymede after achieving orbital insertion around Jupiter, sometime beyond 2030.