I'm John Besser. Behind the black Bob Zimmerman is here exploring. Bob, Bob Zimmerman is here exploring. Bob what is the Franklin Rover?

This is a Mars rover that has been under development in Europe now with a European

rover for, I say more than a decade.

And it was originally supposed to launch in 20 to Mars but they had to delay it because of parachute issues.

It was then going to launch in 22, but then, and it's a, this rover was being launched in a partnership

with Russia and the European Space Agency.

So Russia was going to provide the launch rocket as well as the land that would put the rover

on the surface of Mars.

But just before launch, in 22, Russia invaded the Ukraine.

And the European Space Agency broke off all partnership

with Russia, which meant they lost the launch vehicle and the

lander that was going to bring Franklin to the Martian surface.

So they rescheduled and they're not going to launch it until 28 now and the question is how are they going

to get it to Mars?

They signed a contract with NASA and NASA is going to pay $30 million to help this mission and

it's mostly I think to pay for the

launch services they have not signed a contract with anybody yet because by 28

the launch market could who knows how much it's really going to cost and who you you're going to hire so they'll wait with that

but I think NASA is going to pay for the launch part of it. Who is going to build a

land? Well that's the news. The European Space Agency has now signed the Italian company

Phallis Alina for a half a billion euros to build the entry descent and landing

module for this Franklin Rover they're also going to take over as a prime

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