The European Space Agency (ESA) and Nasa have announced a partnership for the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission to enable the Rosalind Franklin rover to get to Mars by 2030.

The Rosalind Franklin rover is on a mission to find out whether life exists or has ever existed on the red planet. However, its development and original launch date has been hampered by delays.

The rover is part of the ExoMars programme, which comprises two missions: the first – the Trace Gas Orbiter – launched in 2016 while the second, carrying the Rosalind Franklin rover, will launch in 2028.

The ExoMars mission was initially pushed back from 2020, because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the need for more tests on the spacecraft.

Then in 2022, it was announced it would not go ahead that year as planned because of the conflict in Ukraine. The project is a collaboration between the ESA and Russia’s Roscosmos.

At the time, the ESA said that it was “fully aligned” with the sanctions imposed on Russia by its member states...