Exomars Schiaparelli has crashed landing on Mars: retrorazzi active only 3 seconds – The Messenger

Under fire the engines for landing or malfunction of the parachute. And for now, the only thing that is certain, it is the silence that comes from Mars that leaves some hope about the fate of the lander, Schiaparelli. Probably, in view of the speed, the lander crashed on the surface of the Planet Rossso. Anyway, the huge amount of data is so redundant that in order to have a clear answer on the fate of the probe, the Esa could take weeks. “One thing is clear: Schiaparelli is on Mars, but the to see if it is intact, a further analysis of the data collected”. He said David Parker, director of the Exploration robot of the european space Agency at a press conference held in the control center, Darmastadt, Germany, which had participated in also Jan Woerner, director-general, and the Italian Andrea Accomazzo, chief of Operations of the Planets of the Esa. “ thrusters to slow your descent on Mars -said this last – have worked for at least 3 or 4 seconds, less than expected. However, it is too soon to know what did not go well because it may have been the fault of the parachute, or something about the engines, or something else that we don’t know. We have to analyze 600 megabytes of data obtained to analyze in these days to understand what happened in detail“. But, at this point, the fate of the probe, the Esa appears to be marked, and the De Profundis is already in tune.

the WORDS OF THE HEAD OF OPERATIONS ESA
The worst-case assumptions about the fate of the lander, Schiaparelli concerns the outcome of the landing on Mars: the failure of the engines, landing gear or a parachute may have contributed to a sharp impact with the surface of the Red Planet damaging irreparably the probe Esa. “The heat shield worked perfectly, as the whole phase of the input in the atmosphere of Mars -has said Andrea Accomazzo, head of Operations, the Planetary Esa-, has behaved as we expected. After this first phase is the unfolded state of the parachute under the ten kilometers altitude, but after this stage, the probe behaved in a different way from what we expected. The detachment of the parachute from the probe occurred at a time different from what we had planned, about 50 seconds before. This may mean that the parachute may be released at a higher altitude than planned, but this still don’t know for sure. After this up -continue Accomazzo-, S chiaparelli had to turn on the retrorazzi to tackle the last mile and slow down the descent on the martian soil. The retrorazzi were switched on only for three seconds, too short a time. These two elements: the release of the parachute and the short time of the ignition of the retrorazzi could explain what happened, and we are in possession of all the engineering data to understand the case. In a couple of days we will be able to reconstruct the decisions of the on-board computer. To understand why the computer has made these decisions, ” concludes the Italian scientist – or because the sensors of Schiaparelli have provided incorrect information to the onboard computer it will take a lot more time

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THE RESULTS OF the PROBE NASA
Also, the steps on the landing zone of Schiaparelli carried out by Nasa’s Mro (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) have not revealed the secret and in the operational headquarters of the Esa are still analyzing the other data sent by the probe’s mother, Tgo (Trace Gas Orbiter), which “works perfectly and has recorded all”, was the comment of Paolo Ferri, responsible of the flight operations of the missions of the European Space Agency. “In these hours, he added, that, during the analysis of the telemetry, i.e. all the parameters related to the location and condition of the vehicle. The conclusion of the analysis is expected in the morning and at the time the data lead to establish that it has not been a problem of communications.”

ESA AND NASA, THE DIFFERENCES
The hope of the next few hours is that of being able to explain what happened. The Exomars mission represents a fundamental test to learn how to land on Mars. The rest of the billion and a half spent on the mission and permit to the Esa, the use of the technology, very different from the one used by the Usa, which aims to develop its aerospace industry.
While the mission of Schiaparelli could be wrecked on the martian soil, that of TGO and continues along its orbit around the Red Planet will still be around for others years.

enzo.vitale@ilmessaggero.it