Europe’s long-delayed Mars rover has a new path to space
NASA has confirmed that SpaceX will launch the European Space Agency’s Rosalind Franklin rover on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center, with launch possible as soon as late 2028. The decision gives Europe’s flagship rover mission something it has lacked for much of its history: a firm ride to Mars.
That milestone matters because Rosalind Franklin has become one of the clearest examples of how ambitious planetary missions can be reshaped by budget pressure, shifting alliances and international conflict. The rover, developed as Europe’s first mission of its kind to the Martian surface, has survived repeated redesigns and multiple launch plans over nearly a quarter-century.
The current plan places the mission on its fourth rocket. Earlier versions of the program were tied at different times to a Russian Soyuz, then to United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets under a NASA-ESA partnership, and later to a Russian Proton as the mission structure changed again. The Falcon Heavy assignment is the latest turn in that long sequence, but it is the first one in years to arrive with clear institutional backing after the mission’s most serious disruption.
A mission shaped by broken partnerships and funding shocks
The roots of Rosalind Franklin trace back to the early 2000s, when ESA set out to send a European rover to Mars under a program called Aurora. The original launch target was 2009. That schedule did not hold. Delays accumulated, plans changed and the rover project evolved into ExoMars, a broader Mars exploration effort.
In 2009, ESA and NASA signed an agreement to pursue Mars exploration together. Under that arrangement, the European rover would have traveled alongside a similarly sized US rover in 2018, while a European orbiter would launch in 2016 to study methane in the Martian atmosphere. NASA was to provide Atlas V launches for both missions and contribute key landing-system elements.
That framework unraveled in 2012, when the Obama administration cut most of NASA’s participation in ExoMars, citing budget constraints, including pressure from James Webb Space Telescope cost overruns. ESA did not have the funding to replace the lost US contributions on its own. To keep the mission alive, the agency turned to Russia, which became a major partner for both launches.
That arrangement also collapsed, this time because of geopolitics rather than budgets. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced a break in cooperation and left the rover without the launch and mission infrastructure it had been counting on. The result was another major delay and a new search for support.
