https://www.geek.com/news/exomars-rover-launch-delayed-until-2022-for-more-testing-1820219/?source

An artist’s impression of the ExoMars rover on the surface of Mars (via European Space Agency)

Europe and Russia’s second ExoMars mission to study the Red Planet has been delayed until 2022.

A joint project team concluded that additional testing is needed to ensure the spacecraft is fit for its Mars adventure.

“We have made a difficult but well-weighed decision to postpone the launch,” Roscosmos Space Corporation Director General Dmitry Rogozin said in a statement.

“It is driven primarily by the need to maximize the robustness of all ExoMars systems,” he said. “As well as force majeure circumstances related to exacerbation of the epidemiological situation in Europe which have left our experts practically no possibility to proceed with travels to partner industries.”

In other words, COVID-19 has scuppered their plans.

Still, much progress has been made, including hardware integration, instrument testing, and system qualification.

“I am confident that the steps that we and our European colleagues are taking to ensure mission success will be justified and will unquestionably bring solely positive results for the mission implementation,” Rogozin said.

The ExoMars rover, named after female DNA pioneer Rosalind Franklin, was scheduled to launch this July. A new timeline places its send off between August and October 2020.

There are only two relatively short windows (10 days each) every two years during which Mars can be reached from Earth.

“We want to make ourselves 100 percent sure of a successful mission,” according to European Space Agency Director General Jan Wörner.

“We are very much satisfied [with] the work that has gone into making a unique project a reality,” he continued, “and we have a solid body of knowledge to complete the remaining work as quickly as possible.”

The project’s primary goal is to search for signs of past life on Mars and better understand the history of water on the planet.

ExoMars will be the first mission to search for signs of life at depths up to 6.5 feet below the Martian surface—where biological signatures may be well preserved.

More on Geek.com:

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• ExoMars 2020 Rover Operations Control Center Opens in Italy
• NASA’s InSight Lander Detects Hundreds of ‘Marsquakes’