Space agency chief launches attack on Convention omission

Date: 19/06/03

By Martin Banks

THE outgoing chief of the European Space Agency (ESA) has condemned the Convention on the EU's future for failing to acknowledge his agency in the draft European constitution.

Antonio Rodota says it is "lamentable" that the draft treaty drawn up by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's forum does not recognize the role played by ESA over the past 30 years in space exploration.

"You would think the failure to even acknowledge ESA in the constitution is almost designed to discredit the agency," the Italian said.

Rodota, who is due to retire at the end of this month after six years in the post, now wants the intergovernmental conference - which begins in October and runs until spring 2004 and will adopt a final constitution text to recognize ESA as the "implementing"agency for space activities in Europe.

The Convention's draft, to be presented to government leaders at this weekend's Thessaloniki summit, says that member states and the EU should share powers over space exploration.

However, Rodota insists that the agency should have the lead role in the field: "To say that the EU should be discovering space is almost like reinventing the wheel".

This particular wheel has existed for 30 years and it is ESA that has been at the forefront of space exploration, he suggests.

Rodota will be replaced by Frenchman Jean-Jacques Dordain, currently ESA's director of launchers.

Meanwhile, Europe's first trip to another planet is "on course" according to David Southwood, the agency's director of science.

"All is well with the mission and we are keeping our fingers crossed," he said, at the Paris Air Show on Tuesday (17 June).

Watched by European scientists, the spaceship Mars Express has successfully begun its six months mission to the Red Planet.

On Monday it cleared its first major hurdle since its launch, when the connecting bolts that kept Beagle-2, the British probe, attached to Mars Express were successfully detached. As intended, one bolt remains in place.

The exploratory spacecraft, which is roughly the size of a garden barbecue, is now attached to its sister-ship only by the sophisticated release mechanism that will send it hurtling into the Martian atmosphere in December.

The hour-long detachment operation was controlled from ESA's centre at Darmstadt in Germany.

On 20 December Mars Express will release Beagle-2 and the probe will descend to the surface of Mars protected by a parachute and airbags.

Once there, it will analyse soil and rock in a bid to discover minute traces of life.

Gael Winters, ESA's director of technical support, said the agency was already making plans for the launch of Venus Express, which will explore the second planet from the sun.

European engineers are also working on a mission to Mercury and on steering another European spacecraft, Rosetta, towards a comet.

Antonio Rodota, the outgoing chief of the European Space Agency (ESA), has criticised the European Convention for failing to acknowledge the ESA in the draft constitution.