COVID-19 is causing major disruption to European space activity, with the announcement that the Exomars exploration mission to Mars will be postponed until 2022 and that launches at the Guiana space centre are suspended until further notice.
On Monday 16 March, Arianespace announced the decision to suspend its launch campaigns at the Guiana Space Centre due to the pandemic and the measures announced by the French government. “These launch preparations will resume as soon as health conditions allow”, says the French company responsible for marketing and operating European space launch systems (Ariane and Vega).
Last Thursday, the Russian-European ExoMars mission was thus cancelled due to the virus, and the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, announced it would be postponed until 2022 (between August and October).
The mission was scheduled for 26 July 2020. One of the reasons for the decision was “force majeure circumstances related to exacerbation of the epidemiological situation in Europe which left our experts practically no possibility to proceed with travels to partner industries”, explained Roscosmos’ Managing Director Dmitry Rogozin.
China, for its part, is maintaining its Huoxing Mars Mission, which will be launched this summer on the occasion of the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party, as are the United States with the Perseverance mission and the United Arab Emirates with the Hope mission. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)