NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has caught sight of the blackened spot where a European lander apparently hit the Martian surface, providing the first visual evidence that the Schiaparelli probe did indeed bite the dust.
Before-and-after pictures from the orbiter’s low-resolution Context Camera also showed the appearance of a brand-new bright spot in the expected landing zone in Mars’ Meridiani Planum region. That bright spot is thought to be Schiaparelli’s 40-foot-wide parachute, which was apparently ejected earlier than intended.
The “before” image was taken in May, and the “after” image was taken on Thursday, a day after the lander’s descent.
The pictures will help guide follow-up observations to be made next week using MRO’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE. The European Space Agency’s ExoMars team says even the low-resolution imagery is consistent with a high-speed impact that would have destroyed the lander.
The black spot is about half a mile north of the parachute. It measures roughly 50 feet wide by 130 feet long. “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,” ESA said in today’s status report.
The evidence so far suggests that Schiaparelli dropped from an altitude of somewhere between a mile and two and a half miles (2 to 4 kilometers), and hit the ground at more than 180 mph (300 kilometers per hour). ESA said the black spot could have been caused by the explosion of Schiaparelli’s thruster propellant tanks, or merely by the disturbance in surface material.
The spots are located about 3.3 miles west of Schiaparelli’s intended landing point, but well within the 60-by-9-mile target ellipse.
Although Schiaparelli is gone, its companion probe, the Trace Gas Orbiter, is in good health and tracing an eccentric orbit around Mars. Over the next few months, the spacecraft will go through a series of aerobraking maneuvers to move into a circular orbit 250 miles above the Martian surface. Next March, the orbiter will begin its primary mission: studying the Martian atmosphere in search of the signatures of biological activity.
The Trace Gas Orbiter has also been relaying the telemetry it received from Schiaparelli during Wednesday’s descent. Those readings are being analyzed back on Earth in hopes of determining what caused the lander to jettison its parachute and turn off its thrusters prematurely.
Russian Space Web reported that Schiaparelli’s guidance and navigation software may have been at fault.
If ESA’s investigators can zero in on the causes of Schiaparelli’s failure, that should help ESA’s ExoMars team prepare for a more ambitious 2020 mission that would send a rover to the Red Planet’s surface.
