欧洲、俄罗斯推迟联合火星探测器任务

欧洲、俄罗斯推迟联合火星探测器任务

The European Space Agency and Russia’s Roscosmos said Thursday they are postponing a planned joint mission to Mars until 2022, in part due to travel restrictions resulting from the new coronavirus outbreak

欧洲航天局(European Space Agency)和俄罗斯联邦航天局(Roscosmos)周四表示，他们将原定的联合火星任务推迟到2022年，部分原因是由于新爆发的冠状病毒导致旅行限制。

The ExoMars mission was due to launch this year but concerns about possible technical problems had already prompted both agencies to discuss the delay.

ExoMars任务原定于今年发射，但由于担心可能出现技术问题，两家机构已开始讨论推迟发射的问题。

“We want to make ourselves 100% sure of a successful mission,” European Space Agency Director General Jan Woerner said in a statement. ”We cannot allow ourselves any margin of error. More verification activities will ensure a safe trip and the best scientific results on Mars.”

欧洲航天局总干事扬·韦尔纳在一份声明中说:“我们希望百分之百地确保任务成功。”“我们不能允许自己有任何误差。更多的验证活动将确保在火星上安全旅行并获得最佳科学成果。”

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, said the delay was primarily due to technical problems, compounded by the coronavirus outbreak, “which left our experts practically no possibility to proceed with travels to partner industries.”

俄罗斯联邦航天局局长德米特里·罗戈津(Dmitry Rogozin)表示，计划推迟主要是由于技术问题，再加上冠状病毒的爆发，“这让我们的专家几乎没有机会前往合作行业。”

The mission’s goal is to put a rover on the red planet to help determine whether there has ever been life on Mars. Scientists hope the rover, packed with high-tech instruments and named after British chemist Rosalind Franklin, will be able to dig for biological signatures of life below the martian surface and also provide further insights into the planet’s history of water.

该任务的目标是将探测器送上火星，以帮助确定火星上是否曾经有过生命。科学家们希望这艘满载高科技仪器、以英国化学家罗莎琳·富兰克林的名字命名的火星车，能够在火星表面下挖掘生命的生物特征，并进一步了解火星的水历史。

The postponement is another setback for the ExoMars program after the 2016 launch of an orbiter and a test lander. The Trace Gas Orbiter was successfully deployed, but the Schiaparelli lander malfunctioned and crashed on the surface of Mars, highlighting the difficulty of putting a probe on the planet.

推迟发射是ExoMars计划在继2016年发射轨道飞行器和测试着陆器之后的又一次挫折。当时微量气体轨道器成功部署，但斯基亚帕雷利着陆器出现故障坠毁在火星表面，突显了在火星上放置探测器的困难。

So far, the United States is the only country to successfully land a functioning probe on Mars. NASA’s Curiosity and InSight landers are still in operation on the planet.

到目前为止，美国是唯一一个成功将探测器送上火星的国家。美国宇航局的“好奇号”和“洞察号”着陆器仍在火星上运行。

NASA’s science mission chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, said ESA and Roscosmos made a “tough decision” in delaying the ExoMars mission.

美国国家航空航天局的科学任务负责人托马斯·祖布臣说，欧洲航天局和俄罗斯宇航局做出了一个“艰难的决定”，推迟了联合火星任务。

“Launching & safely landing a spacecraft on Mars are extremely demanding and require many technologies & systems to function perfectly,” he wrote on Twitter.

他在推特上写道:“在火星上发射和安全着陆航天器的要求非常高，需要很多技术和系统才能完美运作。”