Rosalind Franklin

The Rosalind Franklin is a European Space Agency (ESA) Mars rover to be launched in 2028 or later. The name is in honor of an English scientist, an older name being the ExoMars Rover. The rover was originally a portion of the ExoMars program, a collaboration with Roscosmos which ceased in 2022, and as recently as early 2022, the rover was scheduled for a September 2022 launch, a June 2023 landing and seven months of operation on Mars. The rover-mission was delayed with plans to find a new means of sending it to Mars. In 2024, ESA announced the new mission name, ExoMars 2028, signing an agreement with NASA to assist with a 2028 launch. Current (2026) plans are to launch in Fall 2028 for a 2030 landing. NASA's own project name for its contribution is ROSA, for Rosalind Franklin Support and Augmentation. Plans are to launch using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Rosalind Franklin instruments:

• PanCam - Panoramic Camera.
• Enfys - infrared spectrometer.
• WISDOM - Water Ice Subsurface Deposits Observation on Mars.
• Adron-RM - Autonomous Detector of Radiation of Neutrons Onboard Rover at Mars.
• CLUPI - Close-Up Imager.
• Ma_MISS - Mars Multispectral Imager for Subsurface Studies.
• MicrOmega-IR - infrared "micro observatory", a microscope.
• RLS - Raman Laser Spectrometer.
• MOMA - Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer.

With the 6-year delay, this instrument-list could potentially be revised. Some instruments previously listed or considered:

• ISEM - Infrared Spectrometer for ExoMars.
• Mars-XRD - Mars X-ray Diffractometer
• Urey - Mars organic and oxidant detector.
• MIMOS-II - Miniaturised Mössbauer Spectrometer.
• LMC - Life Marker Chip.
• MIMA - Mars Infrared Mapper.