Q&A with Michel Denis, ExoMars flight director

A Russian Proton rocket is scheduled to take off from Kazakhstan on Sunday with the second spacecraft to serve Inmarsat’s $1.6 billion next-generation satellite communications network geared for getting faster links to customers on the move.

Officials are assessing how to adjust operations to collect future rock core samples with NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover after identifying its drill as the likely source of a short circuit that stopped the rover’s movement in late February.

Engineers have spotted two small breaks in the treading on the left middle wheel on NASA’s Curiosity rover, one of six wheels that have moved the robot nearly 10 miles across the Martian surface since landing in August 2012.