Exomars Mission - Two Spacecrafts reach Mars Tomorrow

@rosborne979,

I heard an NPR story yesterday about the landing. It said the only one who has ever successfully landed on Mars has been NASA who has done it eleven times. NASA was supposed to be in on this project but had to drop out due to budget concerns, leaving Russia to join and try to figure out a landing strategy. Kind of sad that NASA's funding is not sufficient to allow them to work with the ESA on a project like this.

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@engineer,

>This< is more or less a summary of what has been said at the press conference this morning.

Now, more than four hours later, it's the same situation.

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@engineer,

That is not actually, factually correct. The Soviet Mars 3 lander successfully landed in December, 1971, but they lost contact with the lander. The same thing happened in August, 1973 with their Mars 6. So they landed successfully, but lost communications with their successful landers. This had happened with NASA missions, too. NASA has simply done more Mars missions than anyone else, more than all other missions combined.

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@Setanta,

ESA's Schiaparelli Mars lander exploded on impact, Nasa images suggest

Quote:

The landing site of a European spacecraft that was supposed to make a historic touchdown on Mars this week has been identified in images that suggest the probe suffered a violent collision at the surface.

Images from Nasa Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show a large “fuzzy dark patch” that scientists think was caused by huge plumes of dust thrown up in a high-speed crash - and may even indicate the probe exploded on impact. Theprobe is believed to have gone down with full fuel tanks far faster than planned because its retrorockets, intended to slow it down, fired for only a few seconds before switching off prematurely.

A second, brighter, surface feature is thought to be the 12-metre-wide parachute, which the Schiaparelli lander jettisoned during descent.

The latest observations confirm what most European Space Agency (ESA) scientists were already resigned to: that what was supposed to be a historic first scientific mission on Mars for Europe had been scuppered at the last moment. The rapid location of the craft is likely to come as a relief, however, and will help with the forensic analysis that is already underway.

... ... ...

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I hate that. I want them to solve all of Mars' riddles in my lifetime.

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@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

I hate that. I want them to solve all of Mars' riddles in my lifetime.

I'm not sure we're ever going to know all the mysteries, even in a grain of sand. But if you can hang on for another 5 years I think they are going to confirm active microbial biology on Mars. The TGO which just entered orbit will begin analysis in early 2018 and I'm hoping that will give some definitive answers as to the source of the methane.

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@rosborne979,

Cows. I bet there's cows hiding there.

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@edgarblythe,

So, you're going with the Cow Fart theory? Maybe Martian cows are like octopi that can camouflage themselves and they are all just grazing around the rovers and we just can't see them. Smile

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I believe my friend gunga would back me on this.

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@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

I believe my friend gunga would back me on this.

I believe Martian Cows would be too mundane for Gunga. He would also have to assume the Cows were the livestock of a secretive alien race that built the moons of Mars and shifted the Earth out of its original orbit around Saturn (back in the days of the purple mist) or something like that.

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But I was on the right track, just not doing the right drugs.

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Exomars Mission - Two Spacecrafts reach Mars Tomorrow

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