“Schiaparelli” emergency villages on Mars, module status unknown – RIA Novosti

14:3820.10.2016

(updated: 14:53 20.10.2016)

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MOSCOW, 20 Okt — news. Schiaparelli Landing module (“list”), a joint Russian-European ExoMars mission In 2016 (“ExoMars-2016″) could not land on the Red planet in normal mode, currently his condition is not known, specialists will attempt to restart the transmitter.

the Device was supposed to enter the atmosphere of Mars on October 19 at 17.42 GMT, open the parachute, and after their separation to turn the engines soft landing. However, on the same day it became known that “Schiaparelli” ceased to transmit radio signals for about 50 seconds until touch the surface of the planet. Thus, to establish the nature of possible damage is not yet possible, contact with the module is not installed so far.

“the Radio signal from module “Schiaparelli” was, but he was salomlar, and the transmission ended before landing on Mars. Decoding will continue,” — told reporters the representative of the European space Agency (ESA), Paolo Ferri.

Emergency situation after the disclosure of the parachutes

How did you find the ESA, the situation began to develop non-standard after disclosure of braking parachutes. At this point, “Schiaparelli” continued to transmit signals.

“the Machine behaved as we expected up to a point. Emergency situation began to develop after opening of the braking parachute. After the movement of the module ceased to coincide with our expectations. We have all the information to understand what happened,” — said the representative of ESA, Andrea Accomazzo at a press conference in the German city of Darmstadt.

Failed brake motors?

One of the reasons for the failure may lie in abnormal operation of the engines soft landing. As noted in the ESA, is included in time the engine spent much less time than expected.

“the Engine is definitely turned on, we saw included a few seconds. Of course, the time (their work) is much shorter than we expected. I am not able to say if all of them joined staff, we have not yet processed all the information. But we can tell you about it in the coming weeks,” — said in this regard, Andrea Accomazzo.

the Last seconds before landing

the Landing module mission “ExoMars-2016″ became silent in less than a minute before the expected landing on the Red planet. It is likely that due to the abnormal operation of the brake motors unit fails to reduce the speed to the desired value and crashed, firmly tapping the surface of Mars.

“I don’t have the exact figure, but it has a value of about 50 seconds (before landing). We can not exclude that in the last seconds before landing the module was moving faster than planned,” said Accomazzo, answering a question of journalists about the time of the termination signal.

ESA will attempt to reestablish communication with the module

Experts hope to restore connection with the “Schiaparelli” to obtain the missing information and establish the exact reasons for the abnormal behavior of the device.

“If we decide to do something, we will try to restart the receiver. Currently, we are continuing communication with the orbital station, which means that TGO will try to get in touch with the “Schiaparelli”. It’s already planned,” – said the head of the mission “Eczemas” don McCoy.

“I am convinced that we will understand what exactly happened during the phase of decline, and we will be able to explain what we observed. I have no doubt,” concluded Andrea Accomazzo.

Earlier, Roscosmos noted that if “Schiaparelli” made a soft landing on the planet’s surface, “in accordance with the program of the rechargeable batteries shall maintain, from three to ten days, during which it will be possible to communicate with the lander”.

ECOMAG-2016 (“ExoMars-2016″) — the first in the history of cooperation between the European Union and Russia, the project to search for life on Mars. The launch of the project began with the launch of the carrier rocket “proton-M” with the upper stage “breeze-M” March 14, 2016 from Baikonur, when the ligament apparatus of TGO-”Schiaparelli” was displayed on the trajectory of the flight to Mars.

the Main objective of the Orbiter Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) to search for evidence of methane in the planet’s atmosphere, which could confirm the presence of life or activity in the present or the past of Mars. The purpose of Schiaparelli lander to test key technologies for the second expedition ExoMars, scheduled for 2020.