A joint venture between Russia's Roscosmos space agency and the European Space Agency (ESA) is about to reach a dramatic milestone. ExoMars was launched last March and is already bearing down on the Red Planet. In just hours, the Schiaparelli descent module will hit the upper atmosphere and begin a harrowing descent to the arid, rocky surface far below:
Schiaparelli shared a ride with the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which will search the martian atmosphere for methane and other gasses that could signal life. These will be followed in 2020 by a much larger lander … The ExoMars program has had a long and difficult gestation. Originally a solo ESA project, NASA came on board but had to jump ship in 2012 because of budget problems. ESA then teamed up with Russia’s Roscosmos which offered to provide launchers and some contributions to the project’s hardware.
The module is intended mostly to check out the ESA’s procedure for landing on the Martian surface. That landing is complicated by an atmosphere that is thick enough to pose a threat but too thin to use a conventional descent relying on a heat shield and parachute. The relatively small twin rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, used an integrated system of heat shield, parachute, retrorockets, and airbags to slow and bounce them to safe landings over a decade ago. The larger Mars Curiosity used a nerve-racking skyhook system to successfully put its platform down near Gale Crater back in 2012.
The Schiaparelli EDM will slow down using a heat shield and one large parachute, then power up a rocket system aided by radar. If all goes well, the rockets will bring it to a hover a few feet above the ground and then switch off. A framework under the 600 kg (1,300 lb) probe is designed to collapse and absorb any final impact as it settles in the low Martian gravity at about 10:42 AM ET on Wednesday morning. Landing animation here courtesy of AKAlib, or follow live events at the lander’s homepage here.