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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: 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?