Paris (AFP)

The ExoMars mission is facing a persistent problem with its parachute system, which could prevent it from leaving for the red planet in the summer of 2020 if it is not resolved quickly, the European Space Agency (ESA) acknowledged. ).

Prepared by Space Europe and Russia, this ambitious and delicate mission plans to send a European mobile robot to Mars to drill the Martian soil and try to find signs of past life on the red planet. Russia supplies the launcher, the descent module (with European elements including the parachutes) and the landing platform.

The mission is to be launched by a Russian Proton rocket between 25 July and 13 August 2020. The landing on Mars is scheduled for March 2021.

A race against the clock is engaged to hold the launch window because the essential system of parachutes is still not developed.

A test in early August on the largest of the four parachutes to allow the smooth arrival of the robot and the landing module on the Martian surface failed, said ESA on its website.

Another test conducted at the end of May on all four parachutes (two main and two small ones used to deploy the large ones) had also been a failure. Larged by a stratospheric balloon at 29 km altitude in northern Sweden, the parachutes were deployed but the sails of the two main parachutes had been torn.

After reworking the design, the ESA teams tested again on August 5th the largest parachute, 35 meters in diameter. The first stages of deployment were normal but the sail suffered damage even before the opening of the parachute. And a line broke.

"All the team is mobilized to win the race against the clock," said Wednesday to AFP François Spoto, head of ExoMars program.

A new trial is to be conducted from the United States in November / December. And another is planned for February 2020.

"We are doomed to succeed both," says Spoto. "But there is no reason to panic too much." One thing is clear: "we can only launch something that works," he says.

So far, the United States is the only country that has successfully operated robots on Mars.

© 2019 AFP