Posted: Wed, Feb 4, 2004, 8:52 PM ET (0152 GMT)
European experts have announced their own plan of human exploration that would culminate in a human mission to Mars in about 25 years, although it was unclear if ESA would be able to afford the project. The Aurora project, under development by ESA for some time but whose details were only released Tuesday, would feature a number of incremental steps leading towards a European human mission to Mars in 2030 to 2035. Those steps include a ExoMars, a rover mission scheduled for 2009; a sample return mission in 2011 and 2014; and human missions to the Moon between 2020 and 2025. Officials briefing the press about the project in London provided no cost estimates for the overall project, but did say the first five years of the program would cost €900 million (US$1.1 billion). ESA's space science program has faced a budget squeeze in the last year, forcing the agency to cancel one exoplanet search mission, Eddington, and scale back its BepiColombo mission to Mercury. In addition, France and Italy have cancelled plans to mount their own robotic missions to Mars later this decade.

Related Links:

•  Reuters article
•  AP article
•  BBC article
•  New Scientist article