Britain is still firmly committed to the EXOMars Robot project even though the scope and the cost have grown since it was first initiated. The scope of the project has changed dramatically, mainly due to the inflated expectations of scientists. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), this change in direction justifies the almost doubling of the original budget. The increased cost will however have to be met by the participating countries that originally signed up to fund this programme. Both Italy, the project leader which provided much of the initial programme funding, and Britain, will have to significantly increase their contribution of funding for the EXOMars project. Britain does not begrudge its contributions as it considers that this project makes the most of its expertise in robotics. To date Britain has not been involved in other high-profile ESA programmes such as the Columbus science laboratory and the Arius Rocket project, which could explain why they are not dragging their heels on this. The ESA now hopes to send the robot to Mars by 2020.