French space agency, in deficit, axes two programmes

Posted by tourdemars to Reconnaissance Orbiter at April 30, 2003 12:00 PM

France's space agency announced on Wednesday it would pull out of major missions to explore Mars and to peer into the phenomena of deep space after it notched up a cash shortfall of 90 million euros (99 million dollars) last year. As part of the cuts, the CNES would scrap French participation in Netlander, in which a US-European consortium plans to send four landers to Mars in 2007 to map its terrain and weather system.