The Rosalind Franklin rover: Playing the long game
ESA’s ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover is another example of international collaboration finally coming to fruition despite facing setbacks and uncertainty. After the mission was selected, the 2008 financial crisis nearly pushed ESA to terminate the project. That began the process of seeking more international support. NASA got involved … and then backed out. Russia got involved and launched the orbital component of the mission, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, in 2016, but with the war in Ukraine, that partnership ceased. Now, NASA is back in the picture, contributing a scientific payload, engineering components, and, most crucially, a confirmed launch contract for 2028.
ExoMars project scientist Jorge Vago first began thinking about an updated astrobiology-focused mission to Mars in the early 1990s as a graduate student at Cornell University. There, The Planetary Society’s co-founder Carl Sagan introduced him to the interdisciplinary partnerships that go into studying the origins of life (he also introduced him to his wife, who happened to be another student in one of Sagan’s courses). Today, Dr. Vago looks back on the persistence of the ExoMars program. He offered two explanations: “Firstly, the people involved in ExoMars, at all levels, have a tremendous drive. And secondly, the mission is genuinely interesting.”
The Rosalind Franklin rover will land in a region of Mars called Oxia Planum, adjacent to where the fictional characters in Andy Weir’s “The Martian” landed. A clay-rich region at the mouths of several channels that may have fed into an ancient northern ocean, it is the perfect laboratory for testing the possible origins of life.
Vago explained, “Mars is called a ‘terrestrial planet’ because it formed from the same ingredients as ours. However, it does not appear to have experienced plate tectonics — responsible for reforming most of our crust — and so, on Mars, it is possible to study the very early stages of planetary evolution, affording the conditions for life to appear on Earth. To do this, we need to target an ancient, water-rich location, and Oxia fits the bill.”
Unlike protagonist Mark Watney in “The Martian,” the Rosalind Franklin rover will drill into the Martian surface, reaching depths of up to 2 meters (6.5 feet), deeper than any surface mission has ever reached. The current record was set by NASA’s Viking lander, which dug to only 15 centimeters (6 inches) deep in 1976. Given the constant exposure of Mars’ surface to ionizing radiation, 2 meters beneath the surface just might be the refuge needed for soil microbes to survive.
The Rosalind Franklin rover will also assess for biosignatures using a state-of-the-art molecular analysis suite and a guiding framework that considers a cumulative case across multiple independent lines of evidence and multiple samples — the Sherlock Holmes approach to life detection. This is the part that “clicks” for Vago and links his work back to what he learned in class with Carl Sagan. All the pieces must fit together in a way that “cannot be explained away by anything other than life.”
What these missions mean for life on Earth
In the next five years, we may be closer to answering three of the most anticipated questions about Mars: How and when did Mars and its moons form? Is there evidence of life in Mars’ ancient northern channels? Where should humans take their first footsteps on the red planet? Extending beyond their science goals, MMX, Rosalind Franklin rover, Hope, and Tianwen-1 and 3 together also represent a shift in how discoveries are being made at Mars. NASA risks moving into a supporting role while others take the lead. While this may mean a challenging period for U.S.-based Mars scientists, the fact that more nations are committing resources means these questions are now more of a global priority than ever before, bigger than any single agency or budget cycle. The new faces arriving at Mars over the next half-decade are not just new flags; they are new instruments, refined questions, and a wider community insisting that these answers belong to everyone.