Europe's next Mars mission launch looks likely to slip from 2013 to 2016. And budget overruns on NASA's next Mars rover threaten future missions there and elsewhere.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is having problems paying for an ambitious redesign of the science suite of its planned ExoMars lander, which consists of a rover with a drill and a stationary observational platform. The changes were decided in spring 2007 by ESA's programme board for human space flight, microgravity and exploration, raising the mission's estimated cost from €650 million (US$890 million) to between €1 billion and €1.2 billion. That cost hike must be approved by participating nations next month at an ESA ministerial meeting.
Italy, which contributes nearly 40% of the cost of ExoMars, had originally supported the increase. But following last April's election, the new government says it will not give any additional money. Germany is also resisting the price hike. "The solution in my mind can only be to have a redesign of the overall mission," says Johann-Dietrich Wörner, chairman of the DLR, Germany's space agency.
The immediate cash shortfall is nearly €100 million. If more money can't be found within a month, the mission will probably not launch in 2013, which could increase its costs by at least 10% and might derail it entirely. "This is make-or-break," says David Southwood, ESA's science director.
Southwood hopes that Britain, which at 15% is among the largest contributors to ExoMars, will help make up the shortfall created by Italy. But David Williams, director-general of the British National Space Centre, which oversees UK involvement in space missions, says "I don't think there's much chance of that". France has said it will increase its own percentage but not make up for other countries' deficits.
The trouble for ExoMars comes at the same time that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is facing its own financial diffi*culties. On 10 October, MSL officials met NASA administrator Michael Griffin to review the mission's progress, and decided to push ahead with a 2009 launch despite budget problems. Estimated in 2006 to cost $1.6 billion, the price now looks likely to be more than $2 billion.
Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, are building the rover, and part of the cost problems lie in the new technologies being designed for the MSL, says Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars exploration programme. These include actuators, the motors that drive the spacecraft's wheels and robotic arm. Ed Weiler, the agency's associate administrator for space science, says that MSL engineers did not accurately estimate how much time and money would be needed to develop these and other elements of the rover. Staff overtime is also running over budget. Some $1.5 billion has already been spent on the MSL.
Weiler says NASA will first look at the timelines for other missions under development, starting with other Mars missions and then missions to other planets. The latter could include the Jupiter mission Juno and the lunar orbiters GRAIL and LADEE. For now, principal investigators for the other missions have been told to proceed with mission planning as scheduled, says Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who leads the GRAIL team.
Jack Mustard, a planetary scientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, says many feel that JPL hasn't been able to prove its ability to predict costs accurately. Giving them more money, he says, "is like enabling your drunken cousin".
JPL had asked for and received an additional $200 million this spring, and is now expected to need about $100 million more in 2009. "There are only so many times that this institution can run into these problems and expect forgiveness," says Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division.
NASA administrators and MSL personnel will meet again in early January to review the mission's progress. If the MSL doesn't look as if it will be ready to launch in 2009, it may be delayed until 2011.
The fate of other Mars missions, including the MAVEN orbiter slated for a 2013 launch and a lander planned for 2016, remains up in the air. And the idea of scooping up a sample of Mars soil and returning it to Earth might be pushed back until as late as 2022.
