Russian, European space agencies to launch joint Jupiter mission

PanARMENIAN.Net - The head of Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos Vladimir Popovkin and European Space Agency’s (ESA) Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain held a meeting in Moscow and decided to proceed with Moon research mission and flight to Jupiter, Roscosmos said on Tuesday, December 20.

Russia and Europe are considering five research projects which are the flight to Jupiter with a stopover at one of its icy satellites, the delivery of soil samples from the polar region of the Moon, study Venus' atmosphere and landing on the planet, flying at near-Earth asteroids and deliver soil samples to Earth, and the establishment of an astronomical observatory on the basis of the eyeglass space telescope.

The Moon research mission, the timing of which is 2016 - 2020, and Jupiter mission (landing on moon Ganymede), the implementation of which can begin after 2020 were found the most noteworthy.

“The meeting participants summarized the activity of the working groups on science and the elimination created in August 2011, and also exchanged views on prospects for Russia’s participation in the ExoMars [Exobiology on Mars] project,” Roscosmos said.

Popovkin said on Monday after the meeting that he has no doubt in the possibility of the technical implementation of these projects. But there should be closer cooperation between Russian and European enterprises to transform them into life.

“The next step is to connect businesses in Europe to assess the feasibility of these projects,” Popovkin said, RIA Novosti reported.