NASA has selected several mission proposals for future missions to Mars. They include missions where NASA is the primary driver, as well as participation by NASA on the ESA's ExoMars project.
Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or MAVEN: The mission would provide first-of-its-kind measurements and address key questions about Mars climate and habitability and improve understanding of dynamic processes in the upper Martian atmosphere and ionosphere. The principal investigator is Bruce Jakosky, University of Colorado, Boulder. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., will provide project management.The Great Escape mission: The mission would directly determine the basic processes in Martian atmospheric evolution by measuring the structure and dynamics of the upper atmosphere. In addition, potentially biogenic atmospheric constituents such as methane would be measured. The principal investigator is Alan Stern, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, will provide project management.
And several others.
While final details are unclear, it looks like financial grumblings may have scuttled (for now, at least) the ESA's participation in Russia's proposed Cliper shuttle. The United Kingdom will be playing a role in the ESA's ExoMars mission.
Here's a document that outlines the plans for the European Space Agency for the immediate and near-term future. Goals include ExoMars (a robotic exobiology mission to Mars), participation the Russian Cliper shuttle, the medium Vega launcher and more.
While final details haven't shaken out, it looks like the ESA's ExoMars rover has won out over a more elaborate BeagleNet rover mission. Also lost appears to be another chance for the science suite from the Beagle-2 mission to make it to Mars.
The ESA is planning to follow up on the success of the Mars Express (and the failure of Beagle-2) with a rover to the martian surface (planned for 2011).
A BBC recap of the ESA selection of ExoMars design candidates also points to future plans for a European sample return mission:
The European Space Agency also wants design studies done to show how Mars rocks and soil could be returned to Earth for analysis in a laboratory.
Aurora may lead to a human mission to Mars Esa would like to send a mission to the Red Planet to collect the geological samples in 2011. [...]
"It's a very difficult problem that is going to test us," said Andy Phipps from SSTL. "The purpose of the study is to develop a low-risk concept to bring the samples back.
"It would be a re-entry vehicle not unlike a very small unmanned Apollo-type capsule weighing perhaps 50 kilos," he told BBC News Online.
The European Space Agency has awarded design contracts to their 2009 exobiology mission to Mars, ExoMars to the Italian Alenia Spazio, and French companies Alcatel Space and EADS Astrium:
The contracts cover the design of the entire ExoMars mission, from launch, through the long interplanetary voyage to the landing of the rover on the planet.“This is an exciting landmark for the Aurora programme, since these are the first contracts dedicated to mission development rather than technical studies,” said [Aurora Project Manager Bruno] Gardini.
“With the participation of all major European aerospace companies, the proposed concepts will make the best use of their extensive experience, gathered over many years, in the design and development of interplanetary missions,” he said.