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Schiaparelli_Lander_Model_at_ESOC_feature

Earlier this month, the European Infinite Agency lost contact with the lander phase of its ExoMars mission. The lander, Schiaparelli, separated from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter on October xvi, and began its descent on Oct xix. The ESA lost contact with Schiaparelli roughly 1 minute before touchdown. Only there were signs of an issue earlier that point. While the lander's parachute deployed flawlessly, it ejected its back heat shield and parachute earlier than was it was supposed to. The lander'southward thrusters were meant to fire for 30 seconds, but telemetry indicates they merely fired for three seconds.

NASA was able to provide images of the landing site almost immediately, but the offset shots weren't taken with the high-resolution Hi-RISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. At present we have that information, and information technology sheds some light on Schiaparelli's concluding moments, while raising questions at the aforementioned time.

Hither's the high-level shot of the entire surface area. Several areas of interest have been highlighted:

Zooming in on Schiaparelli components on Mars

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

First, at the bottom of the image, there's a big white spot and a smaller, slightly darker spot below information technology. These are thought to represent to the rear heatshield and parachute that protected and slowed the lander during the commencement phase of the process. Schiaparelli was intended partly every bit a exam for the ESA's landing system, then it's important to know which parts of the organisation functioned properly and which did non. The parachute deployed properly, but was jettisoned as well early.

The large spot in the center-left portion of the image is thought to be associated with Schiaparelli itself. The ESA describes it every bit follows:

The main feature of the context images was a dark fuzzy patch of roughly 15 x 40 m, associated with the impact of Schiaparelli itself. The high-resolution images show a cardinal dark spot, 2.4 1000 across, consequent with the crater made by a 300 kg object impacting at a few hundred km/h. The crater is predicted to be about l cm deep and more detail may be visible in future images.

The arcing dark mark is hard to interpret, as this type of feature is ordinarily only created by a meteor approaching at extremely high velocity with a low incoming angle. The rover was moving much besides slowly and direct on-target to create this type of arc; the ESA theorizes that the hydrazine tanks on the module might have preferentially exploded in a unmarried direction. The forepart heatshield that was ejected earlier in the descent process can be seen in the top-right of the paradigm.

What acquired Schiaparelli's crash?

Right now, all data points to a software trouble with Schiaparelli, rather than a hardware malfunction. The spacecraft appears to have become confused about its own location, given that information technology jettisoned its own parachute so chop-chop, fired its landing rockets for just seconds, and then turned on some of its scientific instruments for monitoring ground atmospheric condition. This all suggests that the spacecraft thought it was much closer to the ground than information technology was — if the altimeter thought the craft was just meters from the surface, it would explain why it fired its rockets for just three seconds.

For now, Schiaparelli's hardware all appears to have been in perfect working lodge when communication from the craft ceased. The ESA team volition be analyzing its telemetry data, reviewing the rover's software, and simulating the approach in software to try and determine what went wrong. NASA may also be able to provide full-color images or boosted details from orbit that help cleft the instance. The follow-up ExoMars mission is meant to launch by 2020, so solving this problem and ensuring information technology doesn't happen again are top priorities.

Championship image of Schiaparelli via Wikipedia