Posted by tourdemars to General News at April 14, 2005 09:26 PM

The European Space Agency (ESA) has confirmed that it plans to send another mission to land on Mars, as part of the pan-European Aurora programme to explore the solar system. The main objectives of the €500m mission will be to search for past or present Martian life; to learn more about the source of the atmospheric methane, and find out whether Mars is still seismically active. ESA also wants to drill into the surface of the planet, something that has not been done before. The robotic exploration will be a prelude to a 2016 sample-return mission. The mission would blast off from Kourou spaceport in French Guiana in 2011 aboard a Soyuz launcher.