CHRISTINA MACKENZIE / PARIS
A mid-March meeting of International Space Station (ISS) partners is likely to show how far Europe will follow the US plans to resume manned missions to the moon and beyond laid out by President Bush. Jean-Jacques Dourdain, director general of the European Space Agency, says the ISS partners "have always known that the Space Station was not a final objective and there would be a follow-on… now that we have a timetable we can get down to work".
ESA's own Aurora programme also lays out a moon-Mars path of future space exploration. It plans to send robotic missions to the moon and Mars by 2015, but does not foresee manned missions to Mars before 2030 and then only "as part of an international endeavour". The USA favours manned moon missions by 2015.
Meanwhile, Dourdain says, ESA's Mars Express mission is a success despite the failure of its Beagle 2 lander. The seven instruments aboard the orbiter "work perfectly well and will provide unique data for the next two years".
Source: Flight International
