Q&A with Michel Denis, ExoMars flight director

A compact European space probe, already fitted with a propulsive boost stage to send it a million miles from Earth, has arrived at its French Guiana launch base for liftoff in early December aboard a solid-fueled Vega rocket.

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a Russian-launched, European-built spacecraft that arrived at Mars in October, is starting to dip into the upper reaches of the red planet’s atmosphere in a year-long “aerobraking” campaign place the observatory in the right position to hunt for methane, an indicator of potential biological activity.

NASA’s robotic InSight Mars lander arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California this week aboard a U.S. Air Force cargo plane, ready for final testing, fueling and launch aboard an Atlas 5 rocket May 5, two years later the originally planned.