ZHUKOVSKY. Aug 26 (Interfax-AVN) - Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA) Johann-Dietrich Woerner has denied reports of the postponement of the second phase of the ExoMars mission from 2018 to 2020.
Everything remains in force; the 2016 mission is due to be launched in January 2016 and the 2018 launch will correspondingly take place in 2018, he said on Wednesday.
Previously, Roscosmos chief Igor Komarov also said that the first phase of the ExoMars project involving the launch of a Proton-M launch vehicle carrying a Martian spacecraft is scheduled for January 2016.
Woerner saw no problems with the ExoMars mission that is due to be carried out by two launches of Proton-M LVs in 2016 and 2018.