Looks like the Brits are planning a Mars rover for 2009.
This is of course good news. But one has to wonder why, with all the US attention focused on Mars (and eventually the Jovian moons and possibly Pluto), the ESA for one doesn’t make more of a go at Mercury. Yes, there are plans under discussion to send a spacecraft there (Europe and Japan, together, are considering a lander/orbiter combination), but why not make that the flagship planet (so to speak) for their space programs? We know comparatively little about the place, it having been visited by just one flyby probe — they could be the pioneers who find out the innermost planet’s juciest secrets, instead of (sorry to say it) playing second fiddle to America’s well-funded obsession with Mars.
Sure, there’s plenty of Mars for everyone, but it would seem to be so much easier to make a mark with the exploration of underexplored Mercury.