A photo from open sources
Joint mission of Roscosmos and the European Space agencies should arrive on the Red Planet next week, giving this flight and cooperation two advanced space agencies of historical importance. If this program is successful brought to life, then NASA will cease to be the only one an organization that successfully landed its probes on Mars.
Mars “getting ready” to meet the Russian-European mission
“Exomars” is an astrobiological mission, one which aims to search for biological and geological activity on the Red Planet. It is planned that the Martian the orbit will be released on October 19th. Then two him component, namely the Schiaparelli lander and orbital apparatus “Trace Gas Orbiter”, each will go their own way. The first will try to march on the surface of the planet in a safe form, and the second should go into a low orbit, starting to scan atmosphere for the presence of water vapor, methane and others residual gases.
A photo from open sources
Of course, this task is not easy, and neither Roskosmos nor European Space Agency has no great track record yet list in similar projects. As you know, in the sixties and seventies of the USSR sent several probes to Mars, but all they crashed or simply disappeared from the radar. And in 2011, Russian scientists sent the Phobos-Soil space probe to natural satellite of Mars, but, unfortunately, it did not leave near-Earth orbit and, falling, burned in the atmosphere.
As for our European colleagues, in 2003 they successfully planted the Beagle-2 space module on the Red Planet. However, the solar panels of the device did not open, leaving a radio antenna for transmitting and receiving signals blocked. So Thus, the probe failed to communicate with the Earth and was detected only twelve years later, last year.
The main thing is to successfully land a probe on Mars
In a word, the Exomars program faces a lot of difficulties, to safely reach a distant planet. After three days after the two components of the spacecraft are separated, the lander must enter the Martian atmosphere. Domestic scientists note that the angle of entry is necessary get perfect, otherwise the probe will overheat, which will certainly result either in its combustion, or in a rebound, and then the device, bouncing off, will fly back into space.
A photo from open sources
According to the expectations of engineers, Schiaparelli will have to deploy the brake parachute and activate after that three hydrazine engine. The lander will analyze the structure atmosphere of Mars and will choose a suitable place for its landing. All these actions are pre-programmed into the on-board computer, and Schiaparelli will be only one chance to fulfill them. If something will not go according to plan, an emergency option at Roskosmos and ESA not.
It is worth noting that the main goal of Schiaparelli is still demonstration of innovative landing technology. Even if the device is not live up to his expectations, Russian and European scientists will learn this lesson and use the knowledge gained during the second phase of the mission “Exomars”, which is planned for 2020. Then the more long-lived, large and reliable module. And it will be just great if landing it will be perfectly worked out by the Schiaparelli probe, what will happen – almost a week later …
Mars
