Posted: Thu, May 1, 2003, 8:56 AM ET (1256 GMT)
The French space agency CNES announced Wednesday that it will cancel plans to mount a series of Mars landers as well as experiments planned for the International Space Station in a bid to deal with a budget shortfall. CNES plans to end its participation in Netlander, a European-American effort to land several small spacecraft on the surface of Mars; that mission was scheduled for launch in 2007. CNES also plans to drop out of the Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), a proposed space telescope largely backed by the US. CNES will suspend plans to send several experiments to the ISS, as well as a joint microsatellite project with Brazil. The cancellations will allow CNES to cover most of a 90-million-euro (US$100-million) deficit the agency ran in 2002; the cuts will reduce the deficit to 35 million euros (US$39 million). The remainder of the deficit will be covered by a loan from other government ministries that will be paid off over three years. CNES also plans to fix its contribution to ESA's launch vehicle programs, primarily the Ariane 5, to a fixed level of 685 million euros (US$765 million) a year through 2009.

Related Links:

•  AFP article
•  CNES press release (in French)