France’s NetLander Mission Postponed

The French space agency CNES has postponed the 2007 launch of the
NetLander mission until no earlier than 2009.

The mission was to
deploy four landers, establishing the first network of science
stations on another planet, to study the subsurface, interior,
atmosphere, ionospheric structure, and rotational dynamics of Mars.

NASA’s Office of Space Science was contributing to the development
of three NetLander science instruments as a Discovery Mission of
Opportunity managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL is a
division of the California Institute of Technology located in
Pasadena, CA.