The European Space Agency claims it still has not received a signal from the experimental Mars lander since its landing on the red planet’s surface. This suggests that the planned ‘soft landing’ by the Schiaparelli probe may have failed. The parachute might have jettisoned too early or the rocket shut off too early.
Jan Woerner, head of ESA, announced this morning that this mission should still be viewed as a success because a vast amount of data was sent back to Earth by the probe before the sudden silence. Scientists are sifting through the voluminous amounts of data that was transmitted by Schiaparelli while it still sent signals.
European Space Agency officials believe that it is too early for any speculations about what might have gone wrong. However, considering the initial data, it would be valid to suggest that the parachute may have jettisoned before it was meant to. Also, the retro-rockets were fired around three to four seconds which was a shorter period than expected. Head of the ESA’s planetary operations, Andrea Accomazzo, claims that a point came amid the six-minute descent when they noticed that the spacecraft was not behaving ‘exactly’ as it was expected it to.
He went on to confirm that the craft’s retro-rockets had ignited – but the data only registered them firing for just about three or four seconds before they lost signal. There were nine rockets in three clusters surrounding the probe. These rockets were supposed to slow down its descent to less than 4.3mph before going off. This was going to allow the craft drop 6.5ft to the ground.
If ESA’s robot is eventually confirmed as lost in space, it will undoubtedly be a major blow. ESA already suffered the disappointment of their Beagle-2’s failure at landing on Mars back in the year 2003.
However, their officials have capitalized on the fact that Schiaparelli was viewed within the company as a technology demonstrator. This means that they saw it as nothing but a project to give Europe a little learning experience and boost their confidence to successfully send a more capable six-wheeled rover to the red planet in the year 2021. There have been 15 attempts to land on the surface of Mars. The attempts have all been split evenly between success and failure.
The most successful being the US space agency’s seven successful landings on the Mars. Russia launched three probes that landed softly but were only able to transmit data for about 15 seconds. The European Space Agency’s previously attempted to land on Mars in 2003, with Beagle 2. However, they never received a signal from the surface.
ESA officials are not giving up, but they may find themselves having to work very hard to convince member states about why the extra investment is worthwhile.
