The conquest or colonization of space is an outdated concept that must be modernized. We have to include a more sustainable and respectful approach based on what we have learned from history about the negative aspects of colonization on Earth, the destruction of natural environments, wars and conflicts.
New elements include the emergence of commercial agents in space exploration, such as SpaceX or Blue Origin, and a new ecosystem with numerous space startups. The geopolitics of space have changed with the evolution of the space ecosystem in the United States, Europe, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, India and the nascent space activities in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and the rest of the world. The Outer Space Treaty has been a strong pillar of deep space activities; and adequate regulations will be necessary for the new deep space economy, resource exploitation, traffic management, space debris prevention, sustainable development goals and protection of the Moon and Mars environments. Furthermore, although we still have old traces of the space race, there are more effective ways to advance human and robotic exploration of Mars through a mix of competition and collaboration, tradition and innovation, diplomacy and technology, inspiration, education and creativity , new space economy, diversity and inclusion, as well as a space renaissance for our society.
How did European interest in Mars arise? At the dawn of the 20th century, some astronomers and also some science fiction authors wrote on the subject of Martians and their civilization. By mid-century, improved telescopes and more careful observation ruled out the existence of a Martian civilization. For space scientists, designers and engineers, Mars has been an attractive prospect since the beginning of the space age. The planet is the most accessible from Earth: at its closest approach, it is less than 60 million kilometers away. A spacecraft in low-energy transfer orbit has to follow a much longer trajectory. Still, a fairly small impulse allows a space probe to move from Earth orbit to a Martian rendezvous point.
The first two Mars probes were launched by the former Soviet Union in October 1960, just three years after Sputnik 1. Both failed before reaching Earth orbit, but the Russians and also their American rivals persevered. The Americans made the first successful Mars flyby with Mariner 4 in July 1964. Mariner was a technical triumph as it showed us the planet's surface and the existence of seasonal dust storms.
Subsequent probes, including several landers, discovered that Mars is very arid and has a thin atmosphere (made up of 95% carbon dioxide) that is too thin to protect the surface from sterilizing ultraviolet radiation. Mars is cold. Even on a midsummer day at the Martian equator, surface temperatures rarely reach 15 degrees; on winter nights, they drop to about -130. As for life, when NASA's Viking landers analyzed the Martian soil for biological activity in 1976, they found nothing conclusive.
Forty years of robotic exploration have revealed a fascinating world of deep valleys and huge extinct volcanoes, with atmospheric cycles and patterns. Of all the planets, Mars remains the most similar to Earth. The Martian environment is inhospitable, but it is much more welcoming than the scorching surface of Venus. The Martian day approaches 24 Earth hours; and the planet has the same tilt, so Martian seasons and even weather patterns look at least a little like ours. And the question of the presence of life is far from being resolved.
Mars is today a dry planet. However, photographs and spacecraft data (the entire planet has been mapped from orbit) show that water most likely once flowed across its arid surface. There is no other simple explanation for the multitude of river valleys and alluvial plains covered with boulders. By all accounts, Mars was once a much warmer place. Although the planet does not support life today, it is possible that it was habitable in the past. Possible fossil bacteria have already been found in a meteorite of Martian origin. Where did all that water go? For good measure, it probably evaporated into space. However, there are indications that at least some of it is still there in the form of ice, beneath the surface. In that case, there is a possibility that Martian life may have moved with it. On Earth, there are many bacteria capable of developing under similar conditions. The search for water, organic matter and life are fundamental elements of all current and future missions to Mars, including the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express, which entered Mars orbit on December 25, 2003. European scientists have contributed to several international missions and attempts to explore Mars (see table 1).
ESA has already gained experience in orbiting the red planet with Mars Express. Since the beginning of its scientific operations in 2004, the orbiter has provided impressive three-dimensional images. He has made the most complete map of the chemical composition of the atmosphere; has studied Phobos, the innermost moon of Mars, in unprecedented detail; and has traced the history of water across the planet and demonstrated that Mars once had environmental conditions suitable for supporting life.
The ExoMars program consists of two missions: the first, the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), was launched in 2016; the second, carried by the Rosalind Franklin rover, will be launched in 2028. Together they will address the question of whether life has ever existed on Mars. The TGO is preparing from Martian orbit the most detailed inventory of atmospheric gases on the planet. It also provides essential link services for the transmission of scientific and operational commands and data to and from the surface of Mars.
A new Rosalind Franklin mission includes a European lander that will take the rover to the surface of Mars. The Rosalind Franklin rover will search for evidence of past life on Mars with a drill and other scientific instruments. The rover is experiencing a kind of rebirth because the mission has been redefined to address the question of whether there was or still is life on Mars. The new launch date, 2028, serves as an incentive to achieve greater autonomy, and allows ESA to invest in European industry in order to master the technologies necessary for travel.
Rosalind Franklin will be the first rover to drill to a depth of two meters, obtaining samples protected from radiation and extreme surface temperatures. The drill will recover samples from ancient areas of Mars and analyze them in situ with the built-in laboratory.
The mission will also serve to test key technologies that Europe needs for future planetary exploration missions. These include the ability to land safely on a planet, move autonomously across the surface and drill, as well as automatically process and analyze samples. The rover will use novel mobility techniques, such as a wheeled walking system designed to overcome rugged terrain. The design of the new European lander will reuse significant parts of the European-developed flight equipment of the originally planned Russian lander, such as the parachutes, computer and landing radar system. While those elements will remain the same, other parts – the entry, descent and landing module, heat shield, landing pad and rover egress system – will be redesigned and built by European industry. The ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission will recover the original objective of creating a European capacity to access the soil of Mars with a large and complex robotic payload, a challenge and an opportunity for European industry.
In parallel, ESA maintains a strategic partnership with NASA to bring samples to Earth for detailed analysis in advanced laboratories. The joint Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign will revolutionize our understanding of the Red Planet by bringing scientifically selected samples to Earth for study. This fully automatic technological demonstration will prepare Europe for sending humans to Mars. The MSR campaign is part of ESA's exploration program and will be the first to return samples from another planet. It consists of several missions. The first phase is underway: the Perseverance rover from NASA's Mars 2020 mission successfully landed on the red planet in 2021 and began collecting samples for possible return to an ancient river delta. Those samples will help understand the early evolution of Mars, including its potential for life.
To bring them back to Earth, Europa provides the Earth Return Orbiter. A robot will collect the tubes filled with valuable Martian soil and transfer them to a rocket, which will carry out a historic interplanetary delivery. Capable of seeing, feeling and making autonomous decisions, the sample transfer arm has a high level of dexterity that allows it to collect samples from the Martian soil, place them in a container and close the lid before taking off from Mars. ESA's Earth Return Orbiter will be in orbit with the container full of samples and will return that material to Earth at speeds never seen before. It will be the first spacecraft to make a round trip to another planet in the 2030s, paving the way for human travel. Several European and international scientists are already advising on the selection of samples for return and preparing the analyzes once back on Earth. The campaign is the result of decades of experience, and the latest in a series of increasingly complex missions to advance extraterrestrial science and exploration.
EuroMoonMars is a program of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) in collaboration with space agencies, academic institutions, universities and research institutions and industries. The program includes research activities for data analysis, instrument testing and development, field testing in analogue environments, pilot projects, training and practical workshops, as well as dissemination activities.
Earth's extreme environments often offer terrain conditions similar to those on the Moon and Mars. To maximize scientific performance, it is increasingly important to rehearse mission operations in the field and through simulations. For this reason, EuroMoonMars field campaigns have been organized in specific places of technical, scientific and exploration interest. Lunex EuroMoonMars has been organizing since 2009 and in collaboration with ESA, NASA and European and American universities a program of data analysis, instrumentation tests, field work and analog missions for students and researchers in different locations around the world; among other places, in Hawaii (HI-SEAS), Utah (MDRS), Iceland, Italy (Etna), Atacama, Poland (AATC), Netherlands (ESTEC), Germany (Eifel), etc. We began in 2009 with crew expeditions to the Martian Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah.
From Martian habitats and crew simulations we learn operations for the human mission on Mars, and how to live and work there. We have learned to use much less water than on Earth and to recycle it. That has a huge effect on the mass and cost of the mission. Six crew members spent two weeks in the Martian habitat in shifts and conducted field experiments in geology, geophysics and biology during simulated outings. We have developed various experiments; for example, to evaluate psychological aspects and grow food in the base's habitat and greenhouse.
Analog missions provide a practical arena in which students can test the notions learned in college in a realistic simulation context. Over the course of those missions, students have access to space instrumentation, laboratories, facilities, scientific operations, and human-robotic partnerships. In 2023, EuroMoonMars and EuroSpaceHub Academy co-sponsored a series of isolation simulation campaigns for the EMMPOL Lunar Base in Poland. We have also conducted a new series of crew isolation missions at our IMA HI-SEAS base on the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. From 2022, the EuroMoonMars program contributes to the EuroSpaceHub Academy with a consortium of European universities to train researchers, entrepreneurs and space astronauts. It also actively participates in dissemination and dissemination activities in international events: Berlin Space Renaissance Festival (July 2022), Paris International Astronautical Congress (September 2022), Rome New Space Economy Forum (December 2022), EuroSpaceHub Forum in Ibiza (May 2023), Padua European Lunar Symposium (June 2023), International Moon Day around the world (July 20, 2023), Baku International Astronautical Congress (October 2023). We also developed a vision aimed at a lunar village and settlements on Mars with a synergy between science, technology, peace, collaboration, resource utilization, new space economy and entrepreneurship, education, inspiration and space renaissance, space for all as new Sustainable Development Goal, SpaceSDG18, of the UN.
In the longer term, it is also of interest to ESA's Aurora Programme, recently named Terrae Novae, whose mission is to take human spaceflight beyond the International Space Station and into the solar system over the next twenty years. years. Along the way, Aurora will guide the development of improved soft-landing technology and broadband interplanetary communications, as well as sophisticated robotic science packages. However, there is a limit to what robots can do. As a step toward its primary goal, Aurora could consider a sample return mission for more comprehensive analysis on Earth. With broadband communications (and without them the mission is likely impossible), the Internet will allow millions of people to share the adventure. A Martian sample return mission could also be our first attempt at interplanetary exploitation. Instead of refueling propellant from Earth for the return trip, the lander's systems could include technology that generates fuel from Martian resources.
Mars exploration plans should lead to an even greater adventure: a human mission. Astronauts are much more capable than the most intelligent robot, but they are also much more difficult and expensive to transport. Unlike robots, they eat and breathe. For a human expedition to Mars to be possible, new technologies will have to be developed and tested: not only soft-landing methods and in-situ fuel processing, but life-support engineering for a long journey far from home, and perhaps rocket systems as well. completely new ones (perhaps based on new types of propulsion) that reduce the time spent navigating through space. A human mission to Mars, with the Moon as the first target or even as a way station to the red planet, will represent the culmination of the program's efforts.
ESA's goal is to send Europeans to Mars in 2040. Europe has the ambition to independently and sustainably prepare the first human mission to Mars, with robots as precursors and explorers. Those missions to Mars are part of ESA's Terrae Novae program, which includes missions to low Earth orbit and the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the red planet. ESA is a key international partner in robotic exploration of Mars. While partnerships remain a key part of the roadmap to autonomy, ESA wants to lead Europe's journey into the solar system and return the benefits of exploration to society.
Bernard Foing is CEO of Lunex EuroMoonMars and committee chair at the International Astronautical Federation (IAF)/Commission for Space Research (COSPAR)/International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG).
