NASA administrator Charles Bolden and the ESA director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain have signed a "letter of intent" recently for the Mars Joint Exploration Initiative in Washington to plan missions to Mars beginning with a European-led orbiter in 2016, and continue with surface rovers in 2018, and then perhaps a network of landers in 2018, according to the BBC.
- 2016: A European-led orbiter to study trace gases, including methane, in Mars' atmosphere. The mission would also put a static meteorological station on the surface. Critically, Europe would handle the entry, descent and landing (EDL) of this station - a capability it has yet to demonstrate.
- 2018: European and American rovers would be despatched to Mars. The US would do the EDL.
- 2020: "Under consideration" is a network of landers focused on geophysics and the environment.
Aviation Week had a report last month on the effort to reach agreement between Europe and the United States on a Mars Joint Exploration Initiative. NASA has conducted a Mars Exploration Status report in July.
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