NASA approves its part of the Rosalind Franklin mission and picks Falcon Heavy for a late-2028 launch

European Space Agency/ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover

NASA approved its ROSA support project for implementation, committing the hardware Europe's Mars rover needs from the US, and selected a SpaceX Falcon Heavy to launch it no earlier than late 2028. The decision ends doubt over whether US budget cuts would strand the mission.

• NASA provides the launch, the lander's braking engines and radioisotope heaters for the rover.
• It also supplies electronics and a mass spectrometer for the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer.
• Launch from Kennedy's pad 39A under a fixed-price NASA launch-services order worth $175.7M.