A UK space firm has replaced a Russian corporation in a European project to search for signs of life on Mars. Airbus in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, will work on the ExoMars lander which will place the Rosalind Franklin rover on the surface of the planet. Russian state space agency Roscosmos had worked on a landing platform called Kazachok, but the mission was postponed after the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The ExoMars programme was expected to launch in 2020 as a joint endeavour between The European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmo. The Russians had replaced American space agency Nasa who quit the project in 2012 due to changing priorities. Do you think that Europe is waking up?

