ESA Plans Mercury Sample Return Mission

At the Second Canadian Space Exploration Workshop last week
ESA representative George Scoon discussed future robotic missions
planned by ESA. Of note he mentioned that they were considering
sending two missions to Mercury. The first schedule to
arrive in 2007 would be an orbiter and the second would be a
lander named “Colombo” that would arrive in 2009.

The lander could survive up to seven days performing a
variety of experiments including retrieving some samples
to return back to Earth.

Related site: Future Science Projects Mercury Cornerstone