ExoMars TGO reaches Mars orbit while EDM situation under assessment
The Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) of ESA’s ExoMars 2016 has successfully performed the long 139-minute burn required to be captured by Mars and entered an elliptical orbit around the Red Planet, while contact has not yet been confirmed with the mission’s test lander from the surface.
TGO’s Mars orbit Insertion burn lasted from 13:05 to 15:24 GMT on 19 October, reducing the spacecraft’s speed and direction by more than 1.5 km/s. The TGO is now on its planned orbit around Mars. European Space Agency teams at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, continue to monitor the good health of their second orbiter around Mars, which joins the 13-year old Mars Express.
Source & further reading:
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/ExoMars_TGO_reaches_Mars_orbit_while_EDM_situation_under_assessment
Woohoo congrats! Keep rolling!
#space #science #exomars #esa #exploration
12 hours ago, Wednesday 19 at 8 PM European Central Time (Paris-Berlin), I heard at the news: The mission planners have received a signal confirming that Schiaparelli touched the ground but they have no more news of the lander.
ReplyDeleteThey are waiting a dozen hours until the rotation of Mars places the lander into the orbiter detection area, but in another angle, to try to catch a signal from Schiaparelli, may be the conformation of the landscape, a slope, a rock, blocks the signal emission.
The main issue is that the batteries of the lander have a limited life span, the lander mission was mainly to measure the atmosphere in search of gas trace as life markers during the descent, and that they'll miss the opportunity to receive the datas.
The engineers are not optimistic...
bbc.com - Fears grow for European Schiaparelli Mars lander - BBC News
Well that is quite simply not what I wanted to hear...
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