PARIS, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- The Paris-based European Space Agency has extended the Mars Express mission by one Martian year, or about 23 Earth months, from the beginning of December.
Last week's decision by ESA's Science Program Committee allows the spacecraft to continue orbiting Mars in a program that has revealed an increasingly complex picture of the planet -- including its present-day climate system and its geological activity and diversity.
Mars Express has also confirmed the presence of glacial processes in the equatorial regions, and mapped water and carbon dioxide ice, either mixed or distinct, in the polar regions. It has detected methane in the Martian atmosphere. That, together with the possible detection of formaldehyde, suggests either current volcanic activity on Mars, or, currently active biological processes.
ESA's Mars Express mission was launched June 2, 2003, from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on board a Russian Soyuz rocket. Mars Express is the first fully European mission to any planet.
