The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter will be launched on a Russian Proton rocket in March 2016 and will arrive at Mars in October this year.
Once in its final orbit, it will take a detailed inventory of rare gases present in small concentrations in the atmosphere, making up less than 1 per cent of it. These include methane, water vapour, nitrogen dioxide and acetylene, that could point to biological or geological activity on Mars.
To complement these measurements the orbiter will image and characterise surface features related to sources of gas, such as volcanoes.
Four state-of-the-art instruments will fly on the orbiter, provided by consortia from institutes across Europe and Russia:
- CaSSIS, a high-resolution camera, will obtain colour and stereo images of the surface;
- NOMAD will identify atmospheric components, including methane;
- FREND will map hydrogen on the surface up to 1 m deep, revealing deposits of water-ice near the surface;
- ACS will investigate the chemistry, aerosols, and structure of the martian atmosphere.