European Space Agency plans to expand cooperation with Russia

MOSCOW (AP) — The European Space Agency will use a Russian rocket to launch a probe to Venus and cooperate with Russia in other space projects, officials said Friday.

An ESA probe set to travel to Venus in 2005 will be launched by a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Russian space program’s Baikonur facility in Kazakhstan, said Alain Fournier-Sicre, ESA’s mission chief in Moscow.

In June, the same type of rocket launched ESA’s Mars Express probe, which is now approaching Mars and successfully jettisoned the Beagle 2 lander in a delicate maneuver Friday.

The Mars Express’ scientific equipment was designed with the help of Russian scientists who had planned experiments for Russia’s own failed Mars-96 mission, said Vasily Moroz, a top expert in Martian studies with the Moscow-based Institute for Space Research.

Fournier-Sicre told reporters that the Venus mission will be less expensive than the Mars Express, because it will apply the technology already tested and won’t have a lander.

ESA also will use a Russian Rokot booster to launch its CryoSat satellite that is to measure the thickness of the Earth’s polar ice caps and floating sea ice in order to shed light on climate change. The satellite is set to be launched next year from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia.

In the longer perspective, ESA and Russia will cooperate on launches of Russian Soyuz rockets from France’s Kourou launch pad in French Guyana. The launches are expected to begin in about three years.

“Cooperation gives us more flexibility,” Fournier-Sicre said, adding that the Soyuz will fill a different market niche than ESA’s heavy Ariane-5 booster, allowing ESA to attract more customers.

Russia and ESA also have continued to cooperate in manned space flights. ESA sent its astronaut, Spaniard Pedro Duque, on an eight-day mission to the International Space Station in October aboard a Soyuz space capsule and a Dutch astronaut is set to go on a similar brief mission next April.

Russian Aerospace Agency spokesman Vyacheslav Mikhailichenko said Friday that another such mission next October may include a private space tourist, but added that a final decision hadn’t been made, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Fournier-Sicre said that a group of some 30 Russian space engineers will help ESA conduct tests on its prospective ATV space cargo vehicle next year. The first ATV launch is tentatively set for early 2005, he said.

(vi/jh)