NASA and ESA's First Joint Mission to Mars Selects Instruments

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have embarked on a joint program to explore Mars in the coming decades and selected the five science instruments for the first mission.

The principal investigator for one of the instruments, and the management for NASA's roles in the mission, are based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.  

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, scheduled to launch in 2016, is the first in a series of planned joint robotic missions to the Red Planet. It will study the chemical makeup of the Martian atmosphere with a 1000-fold increase in sensitivity over previous Mars orbiters. The mission will focus on trace gases, including methane, which could be potentially geochemical or biological in origin and be indicators for the existence of life on Mars. The mission also will serve as an additional communications relay for Mars surface missions beginning in 2018...  

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