Waiting for good news about the fate of the European probe Schiaparelli from the surface of Mars, apparently, will not have to. After enduring a two-day pause, the specialists of the European space Agency recognized that, most likely, the device to Mars sat down and collapsed, and thus lost to the academic mission.
Fit machine Schiaparelli occurred on 19 October simultaneously with the orbit of Mars to its “parent” device TGO. And if in the evening European and Russian scientists were able to rejoice over the estimated module output TGO on the Martian orbit, with the descent camera was not clear. Rather, scientists call what happened to him an anomaly, and unofficially admitted that “everything is bad”.
the fact that during the descent in the atmosphere of Mars probe gave a signal to the Orbiter, TGO, and Mars-Express, in addition, the same signal is strongly noisy, was hardly caught on the Ground Indian antenna array.
But this signal is not transmitted to the surface, and it was suddenly interrupted for 50 seconds before the prospective touch, later experts found.
Deciphering the signal, scientists have determined that a descent in the beginning was the standard, load drogue parachute and was produced by the ejection of the heat shield, however, the separation of the parachute has occurred previously scheduled time. More about the fate of the lander was not allowed to say anything.
that the device is apparently lost, it became clear Friday night, when the ESA has released images of the alleged landing site taken by the Mars scout — American unit MRO, for ten years flying around Mars.
the lower resolution Camera CTX onboard the Mars reconnaissance Orbiter photographed the landing area on the Plateau of Meridian with a resolution of six meters per pixel. Comparing footage of this area before (taken in may) and after landing, scientists, and anyone, can see two new features that did not exist before.
the First — a bright object, which with high probability is a parachute with a diameter of 12 m, separated during the descent after detaching the protective screen. They both separated before the final descent, which had to include nine jet engines and brake apparatus before the surface.
the Second object — a wide, black stain, approximately 15 to 40 m at a distance of one kilometer to the North of parachute.
Scientists believe that this is the point of impact of the apparatus on the surface of Mars after falling at high speed, which didn’t turn off the engines that have failed prematurely.
“According to estimates, Schiaparelli fell from a height of 2-4 km, consequently hit with a high speed of over 300 km/h”, — is spoken in the statement ESA.
the Relatively large size of the visible spots on the surface due to the high impact speed and raised ground. “It’s also possible that the lander exploded on impact, as his tanks were full of fuel,” the message reads.
Two objects that appeared in the pictures are coordinates 353,79 degrees East longitude and South latitude of 2.07.
Their findings, the scientists intend to check next week when the landing site will be able to remove the HiRISE camera higher resolution onboard the Mars reconnaissance Orbiter. These pictures will help you to install and the landing place of the protective screen, shot off at high altitude. Since the descent module was observed with three different devices, the scientists intend to restore the details of his chronology.
the position of the dark spot indicates that the probe has fallen 5 km from the place of intended landing, but inside the estimated ellipse with the parameters 100 to 15 km.
as for the orbital module TGO, now with it installed the connection, the parameters of its orbit are 101 000*3691 km, orbital period is 4.2 days. It is planned that research filling the probe will begin by obtaining calibration data in November of this year. And in March 2017, the probe will begin braking about atmosphere of a planet to be in a circular orbit with altitude of 400 km. After this he will begin to collect scientific information, and in 2020 will be used as a relay for future Mars Rover.
On Board the unit in addition to European have two Russian scientific instruments — ACS and FREND development of the space research Institute of RAS.
With their help, scientists intend to explore the smallest concentration of individual elements in the planet’s atmosphere and measure the neutron flux from the surface, associated with the presence of water in the soil.
meanwhile, as found “Газета.Ru” Russian participation in the project “ExoMars” was not limited to the creation of two scientific instruments and mission launch rockets “proton”. Acting General Director of NPO Lavochkin Sergei Lemeshevsky confirmed “Газете.Ru” that in calculating a ballistic descent Schiaparelli previously participated specialists of the Central hydrodynamic Institute (TSAGI).
“Yes. Any calculation is never done by one team, especially in such important missions. I know that this test was, was this order (from the ESA. — “Газета.Ru”). Even in such missions there is no concept of ordering, there is the concept of division of work. We signed at the level of heads of agencies the matrix, work-sharing, and the division of work is not static and it included the calculation of ballistics”, — said Sergey Lemeshevsky.
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