The space agency said that after a meeting of officials from its 22 member states, it was assessing the consequences of sanctions for its cooperation with Russia’s Roscosmos space agency.
“The sanctions and the wider context make a launch in 2022 very unlikely,” for the Europe-Russia ExoMars rover mission, the agency said in a statement. "We deplore the human casualties and tragic consequences of the war in Ukraine.
"We are giving absolute priority to taking proper decisions, not only for the sake of our workforce involved in the programmes, but in full respect of our European values, which have always fundamentally shaped our approach to international cooperation."
The launch had already been postponed from 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and also because of technical problems.
The mission was due to blast off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan in September 2022 using a Russian Proton rocket, carrying the Russian-built Kazachok...