Establishing if life ever existed on Mars is one of the outstanding scientific questions of our time. To address this important goal, the European Space Agency (ESA) has established the ExoMars programme to investigate the Martian environment and to demonstrate new technologies paving the way for a future Mars sample return mission in the 2020's.

Two missions are foreseen within the ExoMars programme: one consisting of an Orbiter plus an Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module, to be launched in 2016, and the other, featuring a rover, with a launch date of 2018. Both missions will be carried out in cooperation with Roscosmos.

The first ExoMars Mission elements are now in Baikonur in preparation for their launch on top of a Russian Proton rocket next month of Mars.

This video includes interviews with Giancinto Gianfiglio, ESA ExoMars deputy Project Manager and Jorge Vago, ExoMars Project Scientist.