UK Mars rover is casualty of war as science severs its links with Russia

ExoMars mission, of which the 840m British-built vehicle was part, depended on a Russian Proton rocket

It has cost 840m to develop and taken 15 years to build. But now fears are mounting that the British-built robot rover - which was to have flown on Europe's ExoMars mission in September - may never make it to the red planet.

The craft was to have drilled deep below the Martian surface to collect samples that could bear signs of past or present life, but had its launch on a giant Russian Proton rocket postponed last month after the invasion of Ukraine.