Tuesday, October 18, 2016

The chances of ESA landing on Mars...

...Are a million to one, it seems.

OK, that may be a bit harsh. But Schiaparelli is still not responding and may have gone Beagle on us.

*Update*

Worse than Beagle, it cratered.  Looks like some sensors went out of alignment and it thought it was already at zero altitude when it still had hundreds of meters to go - so it jettisoned the parachute, fired the retros only briefly and then hit Mars at about 300 kph.  Still with a lot of retro fuel on board.

Big-badda-boom.

MRO found it a couple of days later and got some photos...link

Still, looks like the orbiter is going to be a success, and Schiaparelli was a proof-of-concept mission for the landing process, so all data is good data in this case.  Just have to hope ESA get everything right for the big landing in 2020. 

No comments: