On Wednesday , October 19 , an experimental Mars lander from the European Space Agency ( ESA ) is going to touch down on the surface of the Red Planet , a drill missionary station to prepare for a rover landing .
This is all part of ESA’sExoMars project , a two - part mission to search for sign of preceding or present life-time on Mars . This flake of the missionary work , which launchedback in March , includes an orbiter and a lander . The following rover , meanwhile , willlaunch in 2020and demesne in 2021 .
The Russian - built lander is called Schiaparelli , and yesterday it split from the parent orbiter spacecraft , call theTrace Gas Orbiter ( TGO ) , on its solo journey towards Mars . There was a small blip following this separation when some datum was n’t being sent back properly , but that all seems to be sort now .
The landing is schedule to be fair dramatic . Owing to the time delay between Earth and Mars because of the distance between the planets , the landing will be autonomous , with no input from the dry land . As was likewise the case with the landing place of NASA ’s Curiosity roamer on Mars in August 2012 , this has been dubbed “ six transactions of terror ” , referring to the clip it will take between entering the atmospheric state and touching down on the Earth’s surface .
ESA will be bouncy streaming coverage of the landinghere , which you will be able to watch from 9 am EDT ( 2 pm BST ) on Wednesday . The landing place itself is scheduled for 10:48am EDT ( 3:48pm BST ) , so make indisputable you tune up in .
Schiaparelli itself is not hugely complex . It ’s called an Entry , Descent , and Landing Demonstrator Module ( EDM ) because , well , that ’s what it is . It has a few scientific instrument on control board , but its independent goal is to test how to land on Mars .
One reason for doing this is that the last time ESA attempt to land on Mars , it did n’t go so well . Their British - built Beagle 2 lander failed in 2003 . Imageslater showedit had touch down , but its solar panels did not deploy properly , so it never had enough power to phone home .
Beagle 2 attempted to shoot down using parachutes and airbags , but for Schiaparelli , things will be a bit unlike . The lander will be using parachutes , but about 1.1 kilometre ( 0.7 international nautical mile ) above the aerofoil , it will wake thruster to slow up its speed from 250 kilometers per hour to just 4 km / Planck’s constant ( 155 sea mile per time of day to 2.5 mph ) .
Then , 2 cadence ( 6.6 metrical foot ) above the surface in a neighborhood called Meridiana Planum , the thruster will turn off , and Schiaparelli will freefall the remaining length , with a crushable structure absorbing the impact of tinct down . The lander is schedule to manoeuver on the surface between two and eight Martian days ( one Martian twenty-four hour period is 40 minutes longer than an Earth day ) before its business leader runs out .
How the Schiaparelli landing place will play out . ESA / ATG medialab
During the declivity it will betaking images , so scientists can see how it all went . Unfortunately , there is no camera on board the lander to image the surrounding the aerofoil , which is a bit of a shame think the magnitude of the delegation . Nonetheless , if successful , it will be a monumental achievement for ESA , which has never successfully shoot down a probe on another world apart from Philae on Comet 67P.
On the same day as the landing , the TGO spacecraft is also scheduled to enter eye socket around Mars . It wo n’t start up its experiment until the end of 2017 , when it will spend a few class essay the Martian atmosphere .
The primary goal is to work out where Mars ’ methane is coming from ; some theories suggest biological mental process may be at play . And there ’s Bob Hope that the landing website for the ExoMars rover in 2021 may hold orotund amounts of methane to study up near . The TGO will also serve as a relay race orbiter for the scouter , helping it communicate with Earth , through at least 2022 .
The newspaper headline news on Wednesday , though , will most likely be appropriate for the Schiaparelli lander . Here ’s hoping it all go swimmingly .
