European Space Agency Confirms That Its Schiaparelli Lander Could Not Survive, India Tracked Its Landing

Shreya Kalra
Shreya KalraUpdated on Oct 21, 2016, 18:21 IST

The European Space Agency confirmed that its Mars probe, Schiaparelli lander, most probably did not survive its six-minute descent through Mar's atmosphere yesterday, and is lost. Schiaparelli is part of ESA's ExoMars Mission and its aim was to test landing technology for future Mars missions. 


Its entry into Mars went according to plan but something went wrong 50 seconds before touchdown and ESA lost contact with the probe. Scientists in charge of the mission aren't really sure what went wrong but they are examining data from the descent to understand what happened exactly. Maybe the parachute opened slightly too early, or the thrusters turned off sooner than expected. 

“Schiaparelli’s primary role was to test European landing technologies. Recording the data during the descent was part of that, and it is important we can learn what happened, in order to prepare for the future,” says Jan Wörner, ESA Director General.

“In terms of the Schiaparelli test module, we have data coming back that allow us to fully understand the steps that did occur, and why the soft landing did not occur,” says David Parker, ESA Director of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration.

The probe is named after a 19th century Italian astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli. It was in the 1800s that astronomers were beginning to build larger and larger telescopes, which allowed them to understand more about space. It's when Schiaparelli started looking at Mars and examining it and he spotted features that looked like deep trenches. 

ALSO READ: From Dunes To Crates, NASA Just Released Stunning Pictures Of Mars' Surface

Telescope in Maharashtra tracked spacecraft's Mars landing

India was the last country to receive a signal from the Schiaparelli lander, a tiny European craft which scientists believe may have reached the surface of Mars, but may not have survived the impact. The Giant Metre-wave Radio Telescope (GMRT) at Khodad detected and tracked the landing of a European Space Agency spacecraft on a Mars mission, an official said here on Thursday.

"On Wednesday evening from 7.04 p.m., the GMRT clearly detected and tracked the weak signal emanating from Schiaparelli EDM, all the way into the last phases of the descent of module through the Martian atmosphere till 8.37 p.m.," said GMRT Dean Yashwant Gupta.

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