Russia and the European Space Agency (ESA) are to launch their joint ExoMars mission to the Red Planet Monday, lifting off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The goal of the endeavor is two-fold: to make a detailed analysis of Mars’s atmospheric gases, focusing particularly on methane, which could be indicative of life; and to release a test lander, paving the way for another mission a couple of years later.
Success would represent a milestone for both partners, the ESA having made it into Martian orbit only once, in 2003, and the Russians never having done so, despite more than a dozen failed attempts.
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