All set for Europe's Mars lander separation read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/1293-all-set-for-europe-s-mars-lander-separation

A European lander is to separate from its mothership Sunday for a million-kilometre (621,000-mile) descent to Mars, testing vital technology ahead of a mission to explore the Red Planet for signs of life.

Separation is scheduled for 1442 GMT, with the landing due to take place on Wednesday, according to the ESA website.

A 600-kilogramme (1,300-pound), paddling pool-sized lander called Schiaparelli is to separate from an unmanned craft called the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) after a seven-month, 496-million-kilometre trek from Earth

Sunday's separation manoeuvres will be followed closely by mission controllers in Darmstadt, Germany, 175 million kilometres away. 

In 2003, ESA  sent down a small lander, Beagle 2, from its highly successful Mars Express orbiter. 

The operation is a testbed for the second chapter of the so-called ExoMars mission, a joint exploration with Russia.

With a 10-minute delay — the time it takes for a message to reach Earth — Schiaparelli will send data on temperature, humidity, density profile and electrical properties — information seen as crucial to plan a safe landing for the much bigger and more expensive rover. Battery-driven and without solar panels, the lander should last for two or three days.

 

The TGO will get to work in early 2018, sniffing Mars' atmosphere from an altitude of about 400 km for methane, which scientists believe may be excreted by microbes living underneath the barren, radiation-bombarded surface.

Source: ESA

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