Mars Express—ESA's first mission to planet Mars

Abstract ESA’ Mars Express mission is a fully approved and funded project which has entered its spacecraft development (i.e. hardware) phase early January 2000. It is the first of ESA's new ‘F’ (flexible) missions which are based on a new implementation scenario to maintain overall mission cost below a stringent cost cap. The key features of an F-mission are streamlined management, transfer of more responsibility to industry and upfront definition of the payload. The initial cost ceiling for Mars Express was 150 MEURO in 1996 economic conditions. The payload is composed of eight instruments on the orbiter and the lander ‘Beagle 2’. The scientific objectives of the orbiter instruments concern the study by remote sensing of the surface, subsurface, atmosphere and environment of the planet Mars. The objectives of Beagle 2 include in situ investigation of geological, geochemical, and mineralogical aspects of surface and subsurface samples.