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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)
(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.)