Europe back to Mars – Daily One

Europe launches on Monday in a new adventure to Mars to try landing a module on the red planet and “sniff” some gases in the atmosphere in the hope of finding evidence of current life forms.

The module Schiaparelli 2016 ExoMars mission aims essentially “Europe to learn how to land on Mars,” says Jorge Vago Argentine, chief scientist of this program for the European Space Agency (ESA).

“We will test the aerodynamic braking, opening a parachute, the firing of the thrusters and the deformable material” to cushion the contact with the surface, told AFP Michel Viso, the space agency French CNES.

After the abandonment of Americans for budgetary reasons in 2011, launched the European mission ExoMars 2016 with the collaboration of Russia.

Then it will be the turn of another Russian-European mission, ExoMars 2018, which will send a vehicle to look for signs of past life on Mars. Scheduled for 2018, could be delayed.

A Russian Proton rocket will be in charge of launching into space ExoMars 2016, which carry a probe capable of detecting gases at trace levels, called TGO (Trace Gaz Orbiter) and a test module landing, Schiaparelli baptized. The launch from Baikonur (Kazakhstan) is scheduled on Monday at 09H31 GMT.

If all goes well, after a seven-month journey in which he will travel 496 million kilometers, the lander will separate from the probe on October 16 to land on the red planet three days later.

second attempt

This is the second time that Europe heads to Mars. In 2003 he successfully launched Mars Express, which met its scientific mission. But the little British module Beagle 2 landing launched by Mars Express never gave signs of life.

It was located, eleven years later, partially deployed on the planet’s surface. The Schiaparelli module-which is named after the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli nineteenth century, famous for having observed the so-called “channels” Marte–, weighs 600 kilos and has the dimensions of a small car. In the absence of solar panels, its life will be between two to four days.

It is equipped with a basic meteorological station. Once launched the lander, the probe TGO enter into an elliptical orbit and will decrease its speed to settle in a circular orbit 400 km altitude.

By the end of 2017 will begin its scientific work. Equipped with European and Russian instruments, “TGO will be like a big nose in space” illustrates Jorge Vago.

Seek trace gases in the planet’s atmosphere, especially those based on carbon, such as methane. That gas of particular interest to scientists because Earth appears in 90% of biological origins. Moreover, their life have a limited duration. Consequently, its eventual detection by TGO could be a possible index of the current presence of a life at the level of microorganisms on Mars.

Microorganisms and clay

The probe will examine whether the gas “is of biological origin or whether it is the result of a geological process “says Vago. The TGO will also serve as a central telecommunications relay between Earth and the robot ExoMars 2018.

The latter will handle drilling Martian soil to about two meters deep and collecting samples to be analyzed in the same place . Explore the area are very old clays.

The hope is to find traces of organic molecules that could have been found on Mars, “about 4,000 million years ago, when its surface was more or less the Earth, at the time when life appeared on our planet, “says Vago.

As for Exomars 2018, could be delayed two years, according to the director of the ESA, Jan Wörner. That implies that the presuesto of the two ExoMars missions currently 1,200 million euros over 20 years (2002-2022), need a raise.