Roscosmos and European Space Agency recommend to shift the launch of Russian-European Exomars station to be performed from Baikonur spaceport from January 2016 to March 2016 for the technical reasons.
Earlier space industry spokesman said that the launch is shifted from January 7 to March 14, 2016.
“Roscosmos and ESA plan to postpone the launch since there is equipment to be replaced on ESA — Schiaparelli demonstration descent module”, – Roscosmos press service reports.
The specialists found out troubles with fuel flow meters of demonstration descent module and decided to check all mission equipment additionally and recommended postponing the launch.
Earlier there were two Mars missions to be launched in 2016 and 2018 respectively. In 2016 the specialists plan to launch orbital vehicle to explore Mars atmosphere exchanging the data with Mars rover. The rovers itself will be launched in 2018.
The agreement about joint ExoMars program implementation was signed in March 2013. According to this Russian Proton-M booster is to launch TGO (Trace Gas Orbiter) orbital probe in 2016 besides demonstration EDM descent module (ExoMars Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module) will land on the surface of the Red Planet to explore trace gases of Mars atmosphere and distribution of ice in Mars soil.
In 2018 Proton will launch the platform with European rover. Russian Institute for Space Explorations is developing two devices for the rover: infrared spectrometer ICEM and neutron spectrometer Adron-RM.
