ExoMars

louis · 2016-10-20 14:02:04

Haven't seen anything on here about the European Space Agency's ExoMars 2016 mission - the lander was a failure but the orbiter's doing OK.

FROM SPACE DAILY: 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.

The ESOC teams are trying to confirm contact with the Entry, Descent & Landing Demonstrator Module (EDM), Schiaparelli, which entered the Martian atmosphere some 107 minutes after TGO started its own orbit insertion manoeuvre.

The 577-kg EDM was released by the TGO at 14:42 GMT on 16 October. Schiaparelli was programmed to autonomously perform an automated landing sequence, with parachute deployment and front heat shield release between 11 and 7 km, followed by a retrorocket braking starting at 1100 m from the ground, and a final fall from a height of 2 m protected by a crushable structure.

Prior to atmospheric entry at 14:42 GMT, contact via the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), the world's largest interferometric array, located near Pune, India, was established just after it began transmitting a beacon signal 75 minutes before reaching the upper layers of the Martian atmosphere. However, the signal was lost some time prior to landing.

A series of windows have been programmed to listen for signals coming from the lander via ESA'S Mars Express and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Atmosphere & Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) probes. The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) also has listening slots.

If Schiaparelli reached the surface safely, its batteries should be able to support operations for three to ten days, offering multiple opportunities to re-establish a communication link.

TGO is equipped with a suite of science instruments in order to study the Martian environment from orbit. Although mostly a technology demonstrator, Schiaparelli is also carrying a small science payload to perform some observations from ground.

ExoMars 2016 is the first part of a two-fold international endeavour conducted by ESA in cooperation with Roskosmos in Russia that will also encompass the ExoMars 2020 mission. Due in 2020, the second ExoMars mission will include a Russian lander and a European rover, which will drill down to 2 m underground to look for pristine organic material.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 … 111111.htm

GW Johnson · 2016-10-20 15:02:49

According to the Mars atmosphere models I have seen, the local atmospheric densities can vary by up to plus or minus a factor of 2. That's a factor of plus or minus 2 on parachute drag forces, for the same speeds and altitudes otherwise.

It's just speculation, but the air might have been thinner than is usual that day, leading to impact earlier than expected. Not only would the chute have been less effective, but also the end of entry hypersonics would have been closer to the surface than expected.

If the sequence was 100% pre-programmed, without capability to adapt to a thin-air day, we would see a puzzling last-minute loss, which is what we are seeing.

Again, just speculation.

GW

louis · 2016-10-21 13:40:38

Interesting. Kind of confirms my instinctive liking for retro rockets all the way, which I think is Musk's approach as well.

GW Johnson wrote:

According to the Mars atmosphere models I have seen, the local atmospheric densities can vary by up to plus or minus a factor of 2. That's a factor of plus or minus 2 on parachute drag forces, for the same speeds and altitudes otherwise.
It's just speculation, but the air might have been thinner than is usual that day, leading to impact earlier than expected. Not only would the chute have been less effective, but also the end of entry hypersonics would have been closer to the surface than expected.
If the sequence was 100% pre-programmed, without capability to adapt to a thin-air day, we would see a puzzling last-minute loss, which is what we are seeing.
Again, just speculation.
GW

SpaceNut · 2016-10-21 19:47:47

The retro rockets still are fuel dependant on the density of the mars air as its still needs to be slowed to within the thrust capability of them in order for it to work and then the fuel consumption rate will change due to higher speeds and longer run durations.....The moon was different as the calculation was from orbital speed and not what followed air braking.....

GW Johnson · 2016-10-22 10:45:45

Today's stories show photos of the site. The lander exploded, leaving a blackened spot, something like 3000 ft (1 km) away from the parachute. So it looks like everything up to parachute release worked. The current speculation from ESA is that it smacked down without firing its braking thrusters.

GW

RobertDyck · 2016-10-22 12:36:40

Directly from ESA:
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter views Schiaparelli landing site

21 October 2016
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified new markings on the surface of the Red Planet that are believed to be related to ESA’s ExoMars Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing technology demonstrator module.
Schiaparelli entered the martian atmosphere at 14:42 GMT on 19 October for its 6-minute descent to the surface, but contact was lost shortly before expected touchdown. Data recorded by its mothership, the Trace Gas Orbiter, are currently being analysed to understand what happened during the descent sequence.
In the meantime, the low-resolution CTX camera on-board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) took pictures of the expected touchdown site in Meridiani Planum on 20 October as part of a planned imaging campaign.
The image released today has a resolution of 6 metres per pixel and shows two new features on the surface when compared to an image from the same camera taken in May this year.
One of the features is bright and can be associated with the 12-m diameter parachute used in the second stage of Schiaparelli’s descent, after the initial heat shield entry. The parachute and the associated back shield were released from Schiaparelli prior to the final phase, during which its nine thrusters should have slowed it to a standstill just above the surface.
The other new feature is a fuzzy dark patch roughly 15 x 40 metres in size and about 1 km north of the parachute. This is interpreted as arising from the impact of the Schiaparelli module itself following a much longer free fall than planned, after the thrusters were switched off prematurely.
Estimates are that Schiaparelli dropped from a height of between 2 and 4 kilometres, therefore impacting at a considerable speed, greater than 300 km/h. The relatively large size of the feature would then arise from disturbed surface material. It is also possible that the lander exploded on impact, as its thruster propellant tanks were likely still full. These preliminary interpretations will be refined following further analysis.
A closer look at these features will be taken next week with HiRISE, the highest-resolution camera onboard MRO. These images may also reveal the location of the front heat shield, dropped at higher altitude.
Since the module’s descent trajectory was observed from three different locations, the teams are confident that they will be able to reconstruct the chain of events with great accuracy. The exact mode of anomaly onboard Schiaparelli is still under investigation.
The two new features are located at 353.79 degrees east longitude, 2.07 degrees south latitude on Mars. The position of the dark mark shows that Schiaparelli impacted approximately 5.4 km west of its intended landing point, well within the nominal 100 x 15 km landing ellipse.
Meanwhile, the teams continue to decode the data extracted from the recording of Schiaparelli descent signals recorded by the ExoMars TGO in order to establish correlations with the measurements made with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), an experimental telescope array located near Pune, India, and with ESA’s Mars Express from orbit.
A substantial amount of extremely valuable Schiaparelli engineering data were relayed back to the TGO during the descent and is being analysed by engineers day and night.
The ExoMars TGO orbiter is currently on a 101 000 km x 3691 km orbit (with respect to the centre of the planet) with a period of 4.2 days, well within the planned initial orbit. The spacecraft is working very well and will take science calibration data during two orbits in November 2016.
It will then be ready for the planned aerobraking manoeuvres starting in March 2017 and continuing for most of the year, bringing it into a 400-km altitude circular orbit around Mars.
The TGO will then begin its primary science mission to study the atmosphere of Mars in search of possible indications of life below the surface, and to act as a telecommunications relay station for the ExoMars 2020 rover and other landed assets.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2016-10-22 12:41:15)

SpaceNut · 2016-10-22 13:44:56

So close, would have been nice to have the sucessful landing and would be even nicer if it were possible to get to the crash site with the opportunity rover but here is the information pages on that...

http://exploration.esa.int/mars/57446-e … ding-site/

http://www.dlr.de/dlr/en/desktopdefault … lery/22371

No encounter between Schiaparelli and Opportunity
Despite the conveniently close proximity of their landing sites, it is not – theoretically – possible for the two probes to meet (which would also hardly make sense scientifically): Schiaparelli is a stationary lander and Opportunity is located several kilometres outside the ESA probe's landing ellipse at Endeavour crater. It would take NASA's rover more than 11 years to move the marathon distance of more than 42 kilometres. In addition, the Rover is, from a technological viewpoint, not getting any younger.

Schiaparelli_landing_ellipse_ht.tif

False colour image of the topography of the Schiaparelli landing site surroundings. The elevation difference is about 4000 metres between the deepest points of the area in the interior of a conspicuous 15 to 30 kilometre wide crater and the highest regions of the surrounding highlands.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-10-22 23:13:25

Is they any clue as to what went wrong? Also I noticed the Russians were participating in it. What is it with the Russians and Mars anyway? Why can't the Russians manage to land a probe on Mars?

SpaceNut · 2021-02-13 19:05:02

I knew had a trace gas orbitor topic but had to really search for it.
A Mars orbiter just detected something it’s never seen before hydrogen chloride,seems to be linked to seasonal changes, but the discovery ultimately raises more questions than it answers.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-05-21 13:40:05

They are going to try another lander, this time a Rover. "Third Time Lucky" ? https://twitter.com/ESA_ExoMars/status/ … 3702606850

louis · 2021-05-21 15:24:54

It seems to me absurd that ESA and NASA are continuing with the vanity projects given Space X will be there with humans on the ground by 2026 or 2028 at the latest.

Mars_B4_Moon wrote:

They are going to try another lander, this time a Rover. "Third Time Lucky" ? https://twitter.com/ESA_ExoMars/status/ … 3702606850

SpaceNut · 2021-05-21 16:08:50

Thats science not occupation if it lands whole when a single Starship can not return as it stands.

Nasa needs a return capability not another rover or lander

louis · 2021-05-21 16:12:10

Eh? Starship will be designed to return to Mars and a single Starship could carry 100 large rovers to Mars!

SpaceNut wrote:

Thats science not occupation if it lands whole when a single Starship can not return as it stands.
Nasa needs a return capability not another rover or lander

SpaceNut · 2021-05-21 17:51:40

You have no free standing water, or hydrogen to make into fuel at a ration of 1Kg H2 and mars co2 to come up with 18Kg of fuel.

Nuclear SP-100 to provide power for a reaction that makes a source of 5.8 tonne of H2 brought from earth to make a 3.6:6 mix ration of methane to oxygen for a grant total of 106 tonne of fuel over a 26 month period before you can send humans for the mars direct and that ship mass was not even a third of starships...

SpaceNut · 2021-05-22 21:13:22

New ExoMars parachute ready for high altitude drop

The 15 m-wide first stage main parachute will open while the descent module is still travelling at supersonic speeds, and the 35 m-wide second stage main parachute is deployed once at subsonic speeds.

Tmcom · 2021-05-23 23:28:59

SpaceNut wrote:

New ExoMars parachute ready for high altitude drophttps://www.spxdaily.com/images-hg/exomars-drop-test-parachute-hg.jpg
The 15 m-wide first stage main parachute will open while the descent module is still travelling at supersonic speeds, and the 35 m-wide second stage main parachute is deployed once at subsonic speeds.

Hope they change the color.

PS l PM you, on my forum.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-06-28 00:19:20

ExoMars rover twin begins Earth-based mission in Mars Terrain Simulator.
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-exomars-r … ssion.html
EU and ESA proclaim “fresh start” in space cooperation
https://spacenews.com/eu-and-esa-procla … operation/

Rosalind Franklin, previously known as the ExoMars rover, is a planned robotic Mars rover, part of the international ExoMars programme led by the European Space Agency and the Russian Roscosmos State Corporation. The mission was scheduled to launch in July 2020, but was postponed to 2022
Instruments
Hyperspectral imaging
Raman Laser Spectrometer
https://www.space.com/34664-exomars-facts.html
Mars Organic Molecule Analyser

PanCam (Panoramic Camera) ISEM (Infrared Spectrometer for ExoMars) CLUPI (Close-UP Imager) WISDOM (Water Ice and Subsurface Deposit Observation On Mars) Adron (which will look for subsurface water and hydrated minerals, in combination with WISDOM) MA_MISS (Mars Multispectral Imager for Subsurface Studies) MicrOmega (a visible and infrared imaging spectrometer) RLS (Raman Spectrometer) MOMA (Mars Organic Molecule Analyser)

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2021-06-28 00:19:29)

tahanson43206 · 2021-09-16 11:54:21

https://www.esa.int/Newsroom/Press_Rele … et_in_2022

SCIENCE & EXPLORATION
6–2020: ExoMars to take off for the Red Planet in 2022

This post is to show the correct spelling and display for the ExoMars rover mission.

All posts ahead of this one in this topic appear to be correct. This post is for rapid lookup only.,

SearchTerm:ExoMars topic

(th)

SpaceNut · 2021-09-18 20:19:56

I will be darned if I can not find the topic that th requested an update in but here is an update still the same.

Next Mars rover will drill deeper underground than ever before to hunt for life; Drilling in the dee-ee-eep. The ExoMars rover's Earth-dwelling twin shows off its skills.

The deepest drilling on Mars has reached only about 2.8 inches (7 centimeters). ESA's rover is designed to dig in up to 6.5 feet (2 meters), grab a small soil sample and then bring it back up to an onboard laboratory for analysis.

rover drilling video

SpaceNut · 2021-09-19 18:01:03

First deep drilling success for ExoMars

ESA's Rosalind Franklin twin rover on Earth has drilled down and extracted samples 1.7 metres into the ground - much deeper than any other martian rover has ever attempted.

esa-exomars-rosalind-franklin-twin-rover-drill-test-hole-hg.jpg

Rosalind Franklin's drill works on rotation. A series of tools and extension rods are fitted to form a 'drill string' and can reach the full 2m length when all are connected.
The drill can penetrate the ground at 60 rotations per minute, depending on the consistency of the soil. Digging into sandy or clay solid materials could take between 0.3 and 30 mm per minute.
The drill has also a two-degree of freedom positioner that allows it to discharge the sample at the right angle into the rover laboratory.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration … on/ExoMars

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-12-03 14:49:51

They are testing the twin stunt double

ESA so far had 2 Lander Failures but let's hope this Rover works, part of ESA's larger plan for a sample return or 'Aurora Program' or eventual Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. The second part of the programme was planned to launch in 2020, when the lander would have delivered the rover on the surface. ESA had two lander failures but has two sucessful Orbiters the Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express in sucessful operation. It was launched on a Proton rocket from Baikonur, the Russian Roscosmos State Corporation built the "Little Cossack" lander and ESA's Rover is expected to drive off this lander and explore Mars.

Video: Rover escapes from sand trap in Mars terrain simulator
https://phys.org/news/2021-12-video-rov … rrain.html

tahanson43206 · 2022-03-01 14:00:43

Here's an update on Exomars ...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/eu … hp&pc=U531

The article provides some (a little) detail about the impact of Ukraine on planning for launch in September.

The first thought that occurred to me is that there is still time for the proposal of GW Johnson to launch in September, but whoever takes that one has very little time left.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2022-03-01 18:31:37

One can only assume that the rover is on Russian soil being prepped for flight so if it misses it launch window and it can later be retrieved from the hands of the Russians then it can fly on another similar sized rocket.

As for the mentioning of the ISS reboost by Northrup Gruman, The Cygnus extended version has performed that function in the past when it was launch of the Atlas V before it got sold from ATK.

edit
its good that I was way off...

so there is a chance even with Russian equipment on it to send it on its way.

tahanson43206 · 2022-03-01 18:38:50

For SpaceNut re #23

Thanks for you hint to look for where the Exomars rover might be ... your guess as to location was ** so !!! ** close !!!

Get this (per Google):

ExoMars had been targeting a 12-day launch window opening on September 20. Because of how the orbits of Earth and Mars align, spacecraft can easily launch to the Red Planet only every 26 months. Currently, the spacecraft is undergoing tests in Turin, Italy; it was scheduled to travel to Russia in April.

Quaoar can possibly pay the probe a visit, depending upon distance to the work site. It is likely to be sitting there for a while.

(th)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-03-02 07:25:25

'The list of companies cutting ties with Russia continues to grow.'
https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/sta … 8942350340

N° 6–2022: ESA statement

https://www.esa.int/Newsroom/Press_Rele … ruary_2022

28 February 2022
We deplore the human casualties and tragic consequences of the war in Ukraine. We are giving absolute priority to taking proper decisions, not only for the sake of our workforce involved in the programmes, but in full respect of our European values, which have always fundamentally shaped our approach to international cooperation.
ESA is an intergovernmental organisation governed by its 22 Member States and we have built up a strong network of international cooperation over the past decades, which serves the European and global space community through its very successful programmes.
We are fully implementing sanctions imposed on Russia by our Member States. We are assessing the consequences on each of our ongoing programmes conducted in cooperation with the Russian state space agency Roscosmos and align our decisions to the decisions of our Member States in close coordination with industrial and international partners (in particular with NASA on the International Space Station).
Regarding the Soyuz launch campaign from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, we take note of the Roscosmos decision to withdraw its workforce from Kourou. We will consequently assess for each European institutional payload under our responsibility the appropriate launch service based notably on launch systems currently in operation and the upcoming Vega-C and Ariane 6 launchers.
Regarding the ExoMars programme continuation, the sanctions and the wider context make a launch in 2022 very unlikely. ESA’s Director General will analyse all the options and prepare a formal decision on the way forward by ESA Member States.
ESA continues to monitor the situation in close contact with its Members States.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-03-02 07:50:54)

New Mars Forums

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#1 2016-10-20 14:02:04

ExoMars

#2 2016-10-20 15:02:49

Re: ExoMars

#3 2016-10-21 13:40:38

Re: ExoMars

#4 2016-10-21 19:47:47

Re: ExoMars

#5 2016-10-22 10:45:45

Re: ExoMars

#6 2016-10-22 12:36:40

Re: ExoMars

#7 2016-10-22 13:44:56

Re: ExoMars

#8 2016-10-22 23:13:25

Re: ExoMars

#9 2021-02-13 19:05:02

Re: ExoMars

#10 2021-05-21 13:40:05

Re: ExoMars

#11 2021-05-21 15:24:54

Re: ExoMars

#12 2021-05-21 16:08:50

Re: ExoMars

#13 2021-05-21 16:12:10

Re: ExoMars

#14 2021-05-21 17:51:40

Re: ExoMars

#15 2021-05-22 21:13:22

Re: ExoMars

#16 2021-05-23 23:28:59

Re: ExoMars

#17 2021-06-28 00:19:20

Re: ExoMars

#18 2021-09-16 11:54:21

Re: ExoMars

#19 2021-09-18 20:19:56

Re: ExoMars

#20 2021-09-19 18:01:03

Re: ExoMars

#21 2021-12-03 14:49:51

Re: ExoMars

#22 2022-03-01 14:00:43

Re: ExoMars

#23 2022-03-01 18:31:37

Re: ExoMars

#24 2022-03-01 18:38:50

Re: ExoMars

#25 2022-03-02 07:25:25

Re: ExoMars

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