The European Space Agency (ESA) is about to land the Schiaparelli lander on the surface of Mars on 19 October. This is a technology demonstration vehicle carried by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which is the first of a series of joint missions between ESA and Roscosmos to study Mars. Because this is a technology demonstration, it has a very limited science mission. It has sensors to monitor the atmosphere, but there is no camera to send back images from the surface. The main science mission will be carried out by the Trace Gas Orbiter whose primary mission is "to gain a better understanding of methane and other atmospheric gases that are present in small concentrations (less than 1% of the atmosphere) but nevertheless could be evidence for possible biological or geological activity."
Schiaparelli is aiming for a smooth plain known as Meridiani Planum. NASA’s Opportunity rover is situated around 15 kilometres outside Schiaparelli's 100 km × 15 km landing ellipse, and will try to get snapshots of the probe's descent, says Mark Lemmon, a planetary scientist at Texas A&M University in College Station. Although ExoMars's parachute may appear as no more than a speck, the pictures could help reveal how winds influence its trajectory, says Lemmon, adding that such shots would represent the first time a Mars landing has been seen from below.
As of its last update on October 17th, the ESA Timeline reports, in part:
| Start of 24/7 ground station contact with TGO | 9 October 2016 |
| Schiaparelli – TGO separation [6, 7] | 16 October 2016 at 14:42 UTC* |
| TGO performed Mars avoidance manoeuvre [8] | 17 October 2016 at 02:42 UTC* |
| TGO insertion into Mars orbit | 19 October 2016, scheduled for 13:04 UTC* |
| Schiaparelli lands on Mars | 19 October 2016 |
| Schiaparelli science operations begin | Start 19 October 2016, 2 sols** planned |
* Time on spacecraft. Between 16 and 20 October the one-way light travel time is between 9.5 and 10 minutes.
** A sol is one martian day, equivalent to 24 hours and 37 minutes.
Mars has become quite the destination! These are all currently underway: "Mars Science Laboratory (MSL, aka Curiosity)", "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)", "Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)", "Mars Odyssey (M01O)", and "MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN Mission)". All of these are communicating with Earth via NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN)
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Updating a recent story, the Schiaparelli technology demonstration lander suffered an anomaly during its descent to the surface of Mars on 19 October. The lander was to continuously send data through the entire landing process, but contact was lost at some point during the descent. Analysis of the telemetry showed an early jettison of its parachute. Its parent ship and main science mission, the Trace Gas Orbiter, inserted into the proper orbit and is working as expected.
From The BBC article:
Telemetry data recovered from the probe during its descent indicates that its parachute was jettisoned too early.
The rockets it was supposed to use to bring itself to a standstill just above the ground also appeared to fire for too short a time.
[...] In addition, the Americans will use one of their satellites at Mars to image the targeted landing zone to see if they can detect any hardware. Although, the chances are slim because the probe is small.
For the moment, all Esa has to work with is the relatively large volume of engineering data Schiaparelli managed to transmit back to the "mothership" that dropped it off at Mars - the Trace Gas Orbiter.
This shows that everything was fine as the probe entered the atmosphere. Its heatshield appeared to do the job of slowing the craft, and the parachute opened as expected to further decelerate the robot.
But it is at the end of the parachute phase that the data indicates unusual behaviour.
[...] Many scientists here at mission control have taken all this information to mean one thing - that the probe crashed at high speed. It is likely it went into freefall a kilometre or two above the surface.
Officially, though, Esa experts say they cannot at this stage fully interpret what happened until a velocity profile for the probe is properly reconstructed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:23AM
Musky could make so much bank by opening a garbage dump on Mars. And not just ordinary landfills either. Just think of the potential for nuclear waste disposal.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:07PM
Call it "Nuclear Disposal Area 2" BUT keep it under closer surveillance each september 13th, one never can be too careful.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:20PM
"Live" coverage at Space.com [space.com] also at ESA [esa.int] (both require Flash). From Space.com:
First, a Social TV program will cover the arrival and landing beginning and 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) and should also be simulcast in the window below. Then ESA's main program will follow in two parts, one from 11:44 a.m. – 12:59 p.m. EDT (1544–1659 GMT) and the other from 2:25 – 4:03 p.m. EDT (1825–2003 GMT).
Also [space.com]:
The Schiaparelli lander — part of the European-Russian ExoMars 2016 mission — is scheduled to touch down on the Martian surface this morning at 10:48 a.m. EDT (1448 GMT).
Not sure where Space.com is getting the landing time when it's not on the ESA's timeline (TFS is accurate per ESA).
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:50PM
Whoever gets stuck dealing with the theming stuff probably needs to know that this summary's table is nearly unreadable on the Greyscale theme [imgur.com] and possibly others. In addition to being barely readable, it's also obnoxiously bright compared to the rest of the theme.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:56PM
The VT100 and VT220 themes are fairly unpleasant to read as well, and it's actually even less readable in Night Mode.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:11PM
The latest seems to be a Loss of Signal with the lander shortly before touchdown, no touchdown signal received but was "not unexpected." Hopefully they regain signal, or get valid scientific data from the loss for future missions. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has acheived orbit. And I'm using http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/Live_updates_ExoMars_arrival_and_landing [esa.int] as a source. And I guess they're using earthbound signal receptionng with the lander proper? Or is the lander relaying signal to ETGO or other orbiting platform?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:14PM
Oh, nevermind. The descent signals were received by earthbound scopes, but the next scheduled receipt is relay via Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it passes over Schiaparelli, so they are using space relay and using earth for initial receipt would also explain the LOS event. Hope it makes it!
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:35PM
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/ExoMars_TGO_reaches_Mars_orbit_while_EDM_situation_under_assessment [esa.int]
It doesn't look good. At 20:34:33 UTC.
The time line from when they expected to get some relay from the lander has come and gone, and ESA is pretty silent on the subject, which is what they historically tend to be when something goes wrong.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @09:33PM
Good call, Frojack. They've also updated the blog with:
"20:55 CEST: The Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) of ESA’s ExoMars 2016 has successfully performed the long 139-minute burn required to be captured by Mars and entered an elliptical orbit around the Red Planet, while contact has not yet been confirmed with the mission’s test lander from the surface. " and a link to the release you cited. The release also says there will be a press conference tomorrow at 10:00 CEST, live stream on esa.int. (And you're right - the data inbound from MRO was expected at just after 20:00 per their site.)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:21PM
Any "Mars Landing" is a hoax, designed to keep the illusion of the Earth as a spinning ball alive. NASA steals 50 million US dollars PER DAY for this, and the copycat "European Space Agency" has no different function.
See past the hoax, people. Do not just rest back and allow your reflexes to jump forward and automatically support this nonsense theories about a globe Earth and other Earth-like globes in space, just because you have been taught that this is how it is.
Remember, someone once TOLD you that this is a globe, and you believed it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @09:37PM
Uh-huh. By the way, AC, someone once TOLD you that there are more people in existence besides those you've personally met - all those pretty pictures you see in TVs and computers of "other" people? Those were just made up. So which one of the people you've personally met in your life am I?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2016, @01:52PM
I missed the press conference (was at 3:00 AM local,) but they've since released a press statement [esa.int], parts of which say:
... Early indications from both the radio signals captured by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), an experimental telescope array located near Pune, India, and from orbit by ESA’s Mars Express, suggested the module had successfully completed most steps of its 6-minute descent through the Martian atmosphere. This included the deceleration through the atmosphere, and the parachute and heat shield deployment, for example.
But the signals recorded by both Pune and Mars Express stopped shortly before the module was expected to touch down on the surface. Discrepancies between the two data sets are being analysed by experts at ESA’s space operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany
....
The data have been partially analysed and confirm that the entry and descent stages occurred as expected, with events diverging from what was expected after the ejection of the back heat shield and parachute. This ejection itself appears to have occurred earlier than expected, but analysis is not yet complete.
The thrusters were confirmed to have been briefly activated although it seems likely that they switched off sooner than expected, at an altitude that is still to be determined.
...
“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,” David Parker,ESA’s Director of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration.
“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.”
(Emphasis mine)
As above, not coming right out and saying the lander is gone. But OTOH it looks like they've got data that can be scientifically analyzed, and the Schiaparelli lander was a research testbed for future landers. The science will have just occurred before they had expected it, I suppose. ;) And it looks like we do have another satellite in orbit around Mars that is functional and relaying data. :)
(BTW, sorry if this is a story already in the feed - haven't checked new stories today, just this one so far 'cause SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! YEEEEEEHAAAAA!)