The European Space Agency (ESA) is set to cooperate with Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos, on two Mars exploration projects.
Under the agreement, ESA will send a robotic rover to Mars on a Russian Proton rocket for its Exomars project and procure Russian parts for the rover’s power supply system.
Roscosmos will also use ESA’s terrestrial communication facilities while sending a probe to Mars’s Phobos moon for the Phobos-Grunt project in October 2009.
The deal was signed at the MAKS-2009 airshow currently being held in Russia.
