European space probe Schiaparelli to land on red planet Mars

Schiaparelli, a European space probe, is on its way to land on Mars using a heat-shield, parachute and rocket boosters to slow it from 13,000mph before finally belly-flopping onto the surface of the red planet. If Schiaparelli survives the six-minute descent, it will be the first time that a European spacecraft has successfully made it to the red planet.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 19 October 2016.

Schiaparelli has already traversed a distance of 500 million km (310 million miles) on its seven-month journey from Earth and the main objective of the ExoMars mission is to search for tell-tale signs of life on the remote planet. However, coming to terms with the notoriously tricky Martian atmosphere will be a problem. It is too thin to rely on a parachute alone and too thick to reliably use thrusters and dust storms and other environmental factors can change the characteristics of the atmosphere on a daily basis.
The European Space Agency is, of course, on a roll because it had brought to an end the hugely successful Rosetta mission last month by bringing the spacecraft to rest on the surface of the comet it had been shadowing. ExoMars is another big test for ESA. The British-built Beagle 2 had failed to call home in 2003 in spite of making it to the surface of the planet. Europe is hoping for better luck this time round.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org


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