Tag: ExoMars
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Last data from Schiaparelli Mars lander hold clues to what went wrong
Artist’s concept illustrating the moment the Schiaparelli lander was to jettison its back shell and parachute and ignite its descent engines. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab The first sign of trouble from Europe’s Schiaparelli lander came around the time the probe was supposed to jettison its parachute and fire thrusters to brake for touchdown on the vast…
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Live coverage: ExoMars orbiter steers into orbit around Mars, lander’s fate TBD
Live coverage of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli lander arriving at Mars. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
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ESA celebrates ExoMars orbiter success, keeps vigil for lost lander
Artist’s concept of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter firing its main engine to enter orbit around Mars. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab A European-built orbiter designed to seek out the source of methane on Mars slipped into orbit around the red planet Wednesday after a seven-month interplanetary journey, but mission control lost contact with an experimental landing…
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European Mars lander released from ExoMars mothership
Artist’s concept showing separation of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli landing module. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab A saucer-shaped entry, descent and landing demonstrator separated from Europe’s ExoMars orbiter Sunday, beginning a three-day approach aiming to become the first European-built craft to set down on the red planet and return data. Named for Giovanni…
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ExoMars orbiter fine-tunes path toward red planet
Artist’s concept of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. Credit: Thales Alenia Space. A European spacecraft cruising toward Mars fired its main engine Thursday, tweaking its trajectory and helping set up for carefully-choreographed simultaneous maneuvers Oct. 19 to place part of the tandem mission into orbit around the red planet and deposit a stationary battery-powered lander…
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Departure of Europe’s first Mars rover delayed to 2020
Artist’s concept of the ExoMars rover. Credit: ESA Europe’s ExoMars rover will not be ready for launch in 2018, officials said Monday, forcing a two-year delay for the ambitious mission to drill into the Martian surface and search for the remnants of past life. Delays in the development of the European-built rover and a Russian…
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Europe’s ExoMars orbiter smoothly cruising toward red planet
Artist’s concept of the Trace Gas Orbiter releasing the Schiaparelli lander on approach to Mars on Oct. 16. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab Ground controllers are running Europe’s ExoMars orbiter through a post-launch checkup a week after its successful liftoff aboard a Proton rocket, and a first look at the probe’s systems revealed no problems, the mission’s…
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Marvel at Monday’s Mars launch with these photos
Take a look back at the fiery blastoff of a Russian Proton rocket Monday with the ExoMars 2016 mission to examine the red planet’s atmosphere and test new European entry, descent and landing technologies. The 191-foot-tall (58-meter) rocket took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0931:42 GMT (5:31:42 a.m. EDT) Monday with the…
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Video: ExoMars mission blasts off on Proton rocket
A massive spacecraft bound for Mars lifted off on a Russian Proton rocket Monday, riding more than 2 million pounds of thrust from the launcher’s six main engines through low clouds hanging over the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli lander, bolted together inside the nose cone of the 191-foot-tall…
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Massive European spacecraft launched toward Mars
Photo credit: ESA–Stephane Corvaja, 2016 Boosted off planet Earth by a Russian Proton rocket, a European-built space probe departed for Mars on Monday, beginning a mission to test future landing technologies and search for methane, a potential signature of microbial life. The mission also aims to map Mars in high-resolution and search for hydrogen embedded…