The Council of Ministers of the participating countries of the European Space Agency and Canada has finished its session in Naples. By approving the signing of the agreement for the ExoMars project the participating countries took the decision to invest more than 10 billion Euros in the space program.

For the Russian space science the meeting in Naples was an important point, as it was supposed to approve the agreement between ESA and ROSCOSMOS on the ExoMars project. This approval has been received and now the final agreement is expected to be signed by the agencies on November 27. Thus, with the signing of the agreement, Russia will be able to get to Mars just five years after the failure of "Phobos-Grunt": the launch of spacecrafts in the first phase of the project is scheduled for 2016.

The second phase of the project includes the launch of the robot rover “Pasteur” to the planet Mars in 2018, for which Russia will also provide a carrier rocket and a landing platform with a set of scientific instruments that will help "Pasteur" to come down onto the surface of the planet. In addition, two Russian instruments will work inside the rover.