Mars mission postponed for two years

US space agency Nasa is delaying a mission to Mars that already had been over budget and will get even more costly.

The launch of the massive roving robot with a rock-zapping laser was pushed back from next year until 2011, which adds $400m (€313m) to the price tag.

More than 10 different problems, all solvable with time, forced the postponement, Mars exploration chief Doug McCuistion said.

The six-wheeled Mars Science Laboratory is designed as the most powerful spacecraft to explore the Martian surface.

About the size of a small sport utility vehicle, it will probe the red planet’s climate and geology in finer detail than previous missions.

The project has been dogged by cost increases and technical problems. Just two years ago the lab was supposed to cost $1.6bn (€1.25bn); the launch delay inflates the total price to nearly $2.3bn (€1.8bn).

The biggest major technical problem involves motors and gearboxes that will help the rover drive around and bend its robotic arm to reach out to test soil.

Mars and Earth pass close enough to launch probes only every 26 months.

The next opportunity is September and October next year; it will be the first time since 1994 that Nasa will miss a chance to launch toward Mars.

It is the second time in two years that Nasa has postponed a Mars mission.

Last year, it delayed a planned 2011 launch of a $485m (€379m) Mars atmospheric probe by two years because of an unspecified conflict of interest in the selection process.