Schiaparelli Mars Lander is Probably Destroyed After Thrusters Failed

Europe’s Schiaparelli Mars lander may be lying dead on the surface of the red planet after its thrusters failed.

The thrusters were supposed to fire for 30 seconds to slow the lander down so that it could touch down gently and protect the sensitive equipment on board.

However it has been confirmed that they fired for just three or four seconds before unexpectedly switching off in the final phase of the six minute descent.

Lost

All contact was lost with Schiaparelli in the final minute of the descent and scientists at the European Space Agency are still analysing data sent from the lander to discover exactly what happened.

At this stage it is not certain that the lander was destroyed on impact but it is certainly feared that it did not survive the landing.

Everything was going fine with the descent phase until the final minute or so.

Schiaparelli successfully separated from its mothership the Trace Gas Orbiter, entered Mars’s atmosphere as planned and that its parachute was deployed as normal.

Martian

“From this point on, the lander has definitely not behaved exactly as we had expected,” Andrea Accomazzo, head of solar and planetary operations, told a news conference today.

“When we put this hardware in the Martian environment, the spacecraft didn’t behave exactly as we had expected. Now it is a matter to analyze why.

“We are not in a position yet to determine the dynamic condition under which the lander touched the ground.

“We are still processing the data from the descent and (when that is done) we will know whether it could have survived structurally or not.”

Valuable

Even if Schiaparelli did not survive the landing it was recording valuable atmospheric data on its descent to Mars and scientists will be able to analyze that.

Schiaparelli is part of the European-Russian ExoMars program to explore the red planet.

The Trace Gas Orbiter, another key part of the program,  is now successfully in orbit around the planet so all was not lost with the Mars mission.

“Following yesterday’s events we have an impressive orbiter around Mars ready for science and for relay support for the ExoMars rover mission in 2020,” said Jan Wörner, ESA’s Director General.

Data

“Schiaparelli’s primary role was to test European landing technologies. Recording the data during the descent was part of that, and it is important we can learn what happened, in order to prepare for the future.”

David Parker, ESA’s Director of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration, said: “In terms of the Schiaparelli test module, we have data coming back that allow us to fully understand the steps that did occur, and why the soft landing did not occur.

“From the engineering standpoint, it’s what we want from a test, and we have extremely valuable data to work with. We will have an enquiry board to dig deeper into the data and we cannot speculate further at this time.”

 

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European Mars Mission Begins Rover Descent to Red Planet

On Sunday, a Mars lander is scheduled to leave its mothership and proceed toward the red planet’s surface to assess equipment for Europe’s projected first Mars rover.
The rover will search for signs of past and present life on the red planet.

The Schiaparelli lander is expected to detach from spacecraft Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) at 1442 GMT (10:42 am EDT) following a seven-month journey from Earth. The descent to the surface would take three days.

The Schiaparelli is only the second European effort to land a craft on Mars. The first was a failed mission in 2003 by the British landing craft Beagle 2.

Landing on Earth’s neighbor, which is about 35 million miles (56 million km) away, has brought disappointment to most Russian efforts and provided NASA some trouble as well. The United States presently has two functioning rovers on Mars, Opportunity and Curiosity.

However, an apparently harsh environment has not taken away from the attraction of Mars. US President Barack Obama has recently reiterated his vow to send people to the planet by the 2030s.

Mars Colony

Elon Musk said he would like to launch the first crew to Mars as early as 2024. His privately operated space agency, SpaceX, is currently developing a massive rocket and capsule to carry large numbers of people and cargo to Mars. The ultimate goal of the project is to colonize the planet.

The main mission of ExoMars is to learn whether life has ever existed on the red planet. The current spacecraft holds an atmospheric probe to analyze trace gases such as methane, around Mars.

Methane is a chemical that on Earth is firmly bound to life. Scientists believe that the chemical comes from micro-organisms that either vanished millions of years ago and left gas frozen underground or that some methane-producing organisms still live.

The second part of the ExoMars mission will deliver a European rover to Mars’ surface on 2020. Hence, this makes it the first rover with the capability to move across the planet’s surroundings and drill into the ground to gather and study samples.

The European Space Agency (ESA) leads the ExoMars 2016 mission. Russia’s Roscosmos provided two of the four scientific instruments on the trace gas orbiter as well as the launcher. The lead contractor is Thales Alenia Space, an allied venture between Finmeccanica and Thales.

The cost of the ExoMars mission to ESA is estimated to be around 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion). This amount includes the second part of the mission due in 2020 however. Russia’s provision comes on top of that.

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Farewell Rosetta – space mission to discover origin of universe ends on distant comet