ExoMars: Trace Gas Orbiter Successful, Lander Crashes

ExoMars, the 8th active mission at the Red Planet, arrived last week. The Trace Gas Orbiter successfully entered orbit, but sadly its test lander, Schiaparelli, crash landed and may have exploded on impact.

Depiction of the lander separating from the orbiter. Image source. 

Last Wednesday, October 19, the lander was supposed to separate from the orbiter, and descend to the surface of Mars. This lander did not have much of a scientific payload, rather it was intended to test the landing capabilities before the next half of the ExoMars mission is sent in 2020. 

Separation was successful, and it appears that some of the early descent stages went well.  Schiaparelli slowed down as it entered the atmosphere, and the parachute and heat shield deployed. However, the signal being sent from the lander stopped abruptly before the module was expected to touchdown. The rover crash landed and perhaps exploded on the surface. Because it was able to send information to ESA for part of the descent, they will be able to analyze that data to learn what they need to improve. 

Image of Schiaparelli's landing site. Image Source

The top image gives context for where the landing site was on Mars. The two lower images are before (left) and after (right) images. Here is a larger version of the after image:

Landing site of Schiaparelli. Image source.

The bright feature in the lower right is thought to be the parachute used in the second stage of descent. This was released before the final landing phase, in which the nine thrusters were supposed to have slowed the lander to a standstill. The dark smudge in the upper left is thought to be debris or smoke rising from the impact of the module itself. Estimates are that Schiaparelli dropped from .5 to 1.25 miles, and thus impacted at greater than 180 miles per hour. 

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has a very high resolution camera HiRISE, which will take a closer look at these features next week.

Before and after the crash landing. Image source

It is sad that the lander crashed. It was meant to test ESA's landing capabilities, so they would be sure to have a successful landing of the second half of the ExoMars mission, a lander planned to launch in 2020. The crash means they have significant work to do before launch. Because Schiaparelli was able to transmit some data back to Earth, mission planners will be analyzing that data closely to figure out what they need to fix before next time. 

As always, failures like this remind us that space and science are HARD. Sending an object to another world, 55 million miles away, and having it safely land on the surface, especially since Mars has much less air to slow the craft down, pushes the boundaries of our engineering and technology. This difficulty is the reason a test lander was planned in the first place. Failures are only complete failures if we don't learn from them, and I know that the mission planners at ESA will be learning from what went wrong with this mission. 

The Trace Gas Orbiter successfully entered orbit, so we can look forward to more information about Mars' atmosphere, and pretty images of the surface. This makes the 8th active mission to be exploring the Red Planet - more than any other time in history! 

You can always learn the latest news from space at the Dome Planetarium! Follow the us on Facebook or Twitter for daily updates, and come see a show next time you visit the Peoria Riverfront Museum - we teach about space and science everyday. This Friday, October 28, you can join us for a simulcast lecture from the Adler Planetarium on black holes and gravitational waves!