[ESA --> Mars] Human Missions to Mars doc. online!!

quote:

At the last meeting of the Aurora Board of Participants, held at ESA's Paris headquarters on Thursday 8 July, the participating states approved the Preparatory Phase of the European Space Exploration Programme (ESEP).

Revising the original Declaration, the European countries already participating, plus Canada, unanimously agreed to remodel Aurora into a broader preparatory ESEP. This is with a view to possibly increasing their subscriptions and welcoming further participants, including the European Union, in accordance with the signed Framework Agreement.

quote:

An assessment study of a human mission to Mars, under the framework of ESA’s European Space Exploration Programme, Aurora, is now available online. The study was carried out between September 2003 and February 2004 by ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility based at ESTEC.

The main objective of the study was to start an iteration cycle to support the definition of an exploration strategy and not to define an ESA reference human mission to Mars. The mission concept examined in the Human Mission to Mars (HMM) report is a design case.