Aurora programme

Aurora was the European Space Agency exploration programme started in January 2002 to set out a strategy over roughly thirty years for European robotic and human exploration of Mars, the Moon and beyond to the asteroids. On 7 October 2002 its Board of Participants approved assessment studies for the first four robotic missions: two Flagship missions, ExoMars and a Mars Sample Return, and two smaller Arrow missions, an Earth re-entry vehicle demonstrator and a Mars aerocapture demonstrator, meant to develop the technologies the sample return would need. The plan foresaw a first phase from 2005 to 2015 gathering knowledge and demonstrating technology for a human mission to Mars and the Moon, and a second phase from 2015 to 2030 developing the European elements of a human mission. The milestones then envisaged included two Mars Sample Return missions between 2011 and 2017 and a human mission to Mars between 2025 and 2030.