Not without a little fright, the lander of the european Schiaparelli began its descent towards the planet Mars – Franceinfo

For the moment, only the Americans have managed to land on Mars in the gear that are able to operate. For the time being ! Sunday 16 October, the‘lander european Schiaparelli began a descent of three days to the red planet. Good news : the probe scientific TGO (Trace Gas orbiter) who hauled it up there, is she also in good health after having given briefly some of the concerns to the engineers.

The two devices are invested with a mission : to explore the red planet and its atmosphere to search for any possible traces of life in the context of the scientific mission ExoMars. Franceinfo tells you more about their adventure :

A long journey together and a separation successful

TGO and Schiaparelli, named in honor of the Italian astronomer of the Nineteenth century, have covered nearly 500 million kilometres since its launch in march by a Russian rocket Proton from the Baikonur cosmodrome (Kazakhstan). After a voyage of seven months to reach the red planet, Schiaparelli separated at 16h42 (Paris time) of the TGO.

This probe européano-Russian will have to change the path in the night to depart in March, otherwise it would come into collision with the planet. It will fit Wednesday into orbit around the red planet, while Schiaparelli will face its own challenge : to land safely. Gold; “during a small time”, the engineers were not fed the telemetry information that helps to understand the state of health of the probe, told AFP Michel Denis, director of flight operations of the ExoMars 2016. But don’t worry, “TGO is in good health. It has stood up well” separation.

The probe TGO will be in charge of “smell” the martian atmosphere to detect gases in trace amounts such as methane, which could indicate the presence of a form of life present on the planet. She will work hard in early 2018.

The hardest remains to be done to the lander Schiaparelli

Schiaparelli, who has a mass of 577 kg at the start, is a capsule of 2m40 diameter that looks a bit like “an inflatable swimming pool for baby”, according to Michel Denis. The descent to Mars will last three days, but there will be only six minutes between the time that Schiaparelli will enter the martian atmosphere and its impact on the ground. And for good reason, it would penetrate the atmosphere, at a speed of 21,000 km/hour. A heat shield will protect the important warm-up born of contact with the atmosphere and slow down. Has 11 km of the surface, a parachute will open and allow him to land on the plain equatorial Meridiani Planum, which has already landed in 2004 the rover american Opportunity.

Finally, nine rétrofusées will be lit at about 1 km from the surface to reduce the pace and the engine will then cut to 1 or 2 metres from the ground. The final impact will be cushioned by the structure crushable module. The sensors of Schiaparelli will be entered in the action a bit more than an hour before the shock to save a whole bunch of data.

The module is equipped with a small weather station that will measure the pressure, the temperature, the wind speed but also the electric fields on the surface of Mars.

But for the life of Schiaparelli will be of short duration: two to eight days because it is only equipped with a non-rechargeable battery.

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