The European space agency ESA and Russia’s Roskosmos reached Mars on Wednesday with spacecraft TGO and with Schiaparelli, on a mission to discover traces of life. TGO has been launched into orbit around Mars, while Schiaparelli has landed on the surface.
Last Sunday, the Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli good-bye after which the lander started its course towards the planet. The lander reached the surface at approximately 3:45 p.m., but it will take a long time to receive a signal detailing the landing. Anyway, it takes almost ten minutes for the signal from the uhf antennas to reach earth, but this time it was a long wait for a sign of life via the Melacom communication system of the Mars Express probe, which had recorded the descent. This probe has been in orbit around Mars since 2003. It is not clear at the time of publishing if the probe had a successful landing or if something went wrong.
TGO and Schiaparelli are part of the ExoMars mission of the ESA and Roskosmos. The aim of the mission is to discover whether there has ever been, or still is, life on the red planet. The name ExoMars comes from exobiology: the possible existence of life beyond Earth.
From its elliptical orbit at 400 kilometers altitude, the Trace Gas Orbiter will analyze the amount of methane and other gases in the atmosphere of Mars, as well as the distribution of the amounts. This should give scientists an idea of whether the gases have a biological or geological origin. The TGO must also act as a communication relay for a second part of the ExoMars mission. The launch for this will not take place until 2020 and will bring a Mars rover and a scientific platform to the planet.
Schiaparelli is a so-called Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module, with a diameter of 1.65 meters and a height of 1.8 meters. This stationary module performs measurements of the electric field of Mars, among other things, in order to determine the role of this field in the formation of dust storms.
The module has been developed to obtain measurement data during descent into the atmosphere and landing. A small camera takes 15 monochrome photos of the landing, but not of the surface. After landing, a small meteorological station on board will provide new data for a few days about the weather conditions and the electrical properties of the atmosphere.
Update, 21.40: It is still unclear whether the EDM Schiaparelli made a clean landing or a crash landing. If it was a clean landing, the batteries should be able to keep the module alive for three to 10 days with potential to restore communications. The ESA reports this in a press release.