The European Space Agency’s Schiaparelli lander will only have one chance to get captured by Mars’ gravity this morning and descend onto the surface of the Red Planet.
The experimental probe is scheduled to enter the Martian atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. ET and land six minutes later.
If the landing is a success, Schiaparelli will take images of Mars and conduct scientific measurements on the surface — but its main purpose is to test technology for a future European Mars rover.
Watch #ExoMars live – @ESA_TGO orbit insertion and @ESA_EDM #marslanding – streaming starts Weds 19 October from 15:00 CEST (13:00 GMT) pic.twitter.com/m5S3B7U7Cd
— @esa
While there are already landers and rovers on Mars, the stakes for this mission are high for the ESA, whose only previous attempt to land something on the planet failed.
The Beagle 2 disappeared during the landing process in 2003 and was declared lost after several months. It wasn’t located until January 2015, when new photos from an orbiter showed that it had reached the surface but failed to deploy fully and start communicating.
But so far, the ExoMars mission — a joint venture between ESA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency — is going smoothy.
The Schiaparelli lander separated from its mothership, Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), as scheduled on Sunday, flight director Michel Denis announced to applause at control centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
Both crafts launched in March.
The Proton-M rocket, carrying the ExoMars 2016 spacecraft to Mars, blasts off from the launchpad at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 14, 2016. (Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)
As of Tuesday, the lander was “asleep” and continuing its coast toward Mars, the ESA said in a mission update.
“All commands for its entry, descent, landing and science mission were previously uploaded, and the next time it will become active is during wake-up about 75 minutes before it enters the Martian atmosphere tomorrow.”
TGO will remain in orbit — analyzing methane and other gases in the Martian atmosphere to help determine whether there is or was life on Mars. Methane is created by biological or geological activity and breaks down within a relatively short period of time once it reaches the atmosphere.
ESA says Schiaparelli will enter the atmosphere on Wednesday at a speed of nearly 21,000 km/h before being slowed by atmospheric drag and then deploying a parachute and thrusters.
The ExoMars mission control team takes part in simulation training to prepare for entering Mars’ orbit. (ESA)
The 577-kilogram lander is expected to collect data during its descent and operate on the surface for a few days. The lander carries sensors designed to measure wind speed and direction, humidity, temperature and electric fields.
In the next stage of the ExoMars program, ESA plans to send a rover to Mars in 2020, equipped with a drill and instruments dedicated to geochemistry and the search for life.
The prospect of finding life on Mars, even microscopic organisms, has excited scientists for some time — but so far none has been discovered.