The Mars Express mission Mars Express in orbit around Mars Mars
Express opens a new era of intensive and important Mars
research. In several ways, Mars Express is a pioneer mission in
its exploration of our closest planetary neighbour. After
Russian, American and Japanese missions, Mars Express is the
first European mission to Mars. Mars Express is the prototype
for the so-called flexible ("F") missions in the context of the
long-term science programme "Horizon 2000 plus" of the European
Space Agency (ESA). With such missions, which are characterised
by a very short preparation time and thus small costs, ESA can
react quickly to current scientific questions. Thus, in 1999, it
was decided that the launch of Mars Express was to take place in
2003. In 2003, Mars was unusually close to Earth, which
permitted, because of the short journey time, a larger
spacecraft to be assembled. The short course of the project led
to low costs as large teams of enterprises and scientists could
work independently. In addition, so