A last-minute about-face by Italy could scuttle Europe's ambitions to take a lead role in Mars and Moon exploration, just as planners are beginning to define a coordinated international exploration road map.

The European Space Agency has been counting on a ministerial summit in The Hague Nov. 25-26 to recast its space program in new directions, with ambitions more attuned to Europe's economic and technological potential. Leading the agency's wish list are a pair of big exploration objectives - a rescoped ExoMars lander/rover mission, with an expanded science package, and a cargo download capsule derived from the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) that could ultimately morph into an interplanetary freighter and crewed transportation vehicle (see p. 38).

Also on the agenda is a request to fund the next phase of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program - renamed Kopernikus - the most ambitious undertaking within the Global Earth Observing System of Systems initiative. ESA also wants to embark on space situational awareness and data relay system endeavors that would take it firmly into the realm of dual-use civil/military applications.

However, a recent change at the helm at Italian space agency ASI, one of the big three ESA contributors, is threatening to throw a monkey wrench into this plan - especially endangering ExoMars. Speaking to reporters at the International Astronautical Congress here last week, the new head of ASI, Enrico Saggese, said a shift in space priorities ordered by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will reduce Italy's ESA contributions far beyond levels initially expected, with potentially disastrous consequences for some of the most important November proposals (AW&ST Sept. 22, p. 35).

Saggese says the new Italian position is not motivated by a lack of funding, because the government has made space a top priority and it will not take a budget hit, unlike other ministries, including defense. The primary reason for the shift, he says, is philosophical: Berlusconi wants to balance out Italy's spending between ESA programs, now running about €370 million ($511 million) per annum, to €300-320 million per year in order to leave more money for national programs. Among these are a second-generation CosmoSkyMed radar-imaging constellation, expected to cost €600 million, and participation in the French Simbol-X orbital telescope and Japan's Hayabusa-2 comet sample return mission.

Agency and industry officials here expressed some doubt that Italy will go to the wall on all these issues, but acknowledge that the strategic shift being imposed by the Berlusconi government may leave ASI with limited wiggle room. "It's partly a bargaining stance and partly reflects a change in Italian policy," says ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain. "It's unfortunate that it's coming just before the ministerial summit."

Even a recent pledge by the U.K. to up its ESA contribution, partly in return for creation of an ESA facility in Britain, may not be enough to compensate for the threatened Italian cuts, especially given the turmoil in the global financial system, notes David Williams, director general of the British National Space Center. "What started out nine months ago looking like a pretty good ministerial is now starting to look like a difficult one."

Most at risk appears to be the enhanced ExoMars mission, whose initial cost, because of the bigger science package, has doubled to €1.2 billion or more. Saggese says Italy, which has the lead role in the program, will not raise its commitment beyond the €250-300 million earmarked, even if it means surrendering responsibility for the prime contract.

Officials say a reduction of such proportions would be virtually impossible for the other nations to make up, despite a move by the U.K. to shoulder 15% of the anticipated cost increase. Germany, the country most supportive of ESA's ambitious road map, does not intend to raise its ExoMars contribution, says Johann-Dietrich Woerner, head of German aerospace center DLR. France, ESA's biggest contributor, is not in a position to spend more money, either, although Yannick d'Escatha, head of French space agency CNES, declines to comment until negotiations are complete. "Science ideas are nice, but a factor of two increase in the pricetag is just not affordable," Woerner says, noting that total commitments are unlikely to go beyond €800 million.

However, David Southwood, the ESA science director who recently inherited ExoMars in a organizational shift, says the enhanced science mission was requested by the scientific community itself and will not be reduced in scope. If the member nations cannot pony up the extra funds, he says, the agency will seek to bring Russia and/or the U.S. into the program, either for the payload, the communications package or perhaps even the launch. But even with international partners, ESA states will have to supply at least €1 billion for the mission to be doable, Southwood says.