The Mars Exploration Joint Initiative (MEJI) is an agreement signed between United States' space agency, NASA, and Europe's space agency, ESA to join resources and expertise in order to continue the exploration of the planet Mars.[2] The agreement was signed in Washington D.C. in October 2009, between NASA administrator Charles Bolden and ESA director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain.[2]
In its hey-day it resulted in a synergy between NASA Mars Science Orbiter and the Aurora ExoMars program, the combination of a flexible collaborative proposal within NASA and ESA to send a new orbiter-carrier to Mars in 2016 as part of the European-led ExoMars project.[3] One of the goals was for NASA to provide to Atlas V launches for ExoMars, however in the early 2010s planetary exploration in the USA was not given enough money to fund this plan.[4]
Under the FY2013 budget President Barack Obama released on 13 February 2012, NASA terminated its participation in ExoMars due to budgetary cuts in order to pay for the cost overruns of the James Webb Space Telescope.[5] With NASA's funding for this project cancelled, most of ExoMars' plans had to be restructured.[4]