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+--- Thread: European Mars Lander (/thread-2958.html)
European Mars Lander - Yazata - Oct 19, 2016
The European Space Agency's Schiaparelli Mars lander is scheduled to try to land on Mars today.
Last I heard is that communications with it had been lost. That is troubling but not totally unexpected and they are trying to reacquire it and determine whether it landed successfully.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2109648-tense-wait-after-esas-exomars-goes-silent-just-before-landing/
RE: European Mars Lander - Yazata - Oct 19, 2016
They still haven't acquired the signal. Apparently they are waiting for the satellite they put into orbit around Mars to reach the right point in its orbit. Live updates here.
http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/10/19/exomars-mission-status-center/
RE: European Mars Lander - Yazata - Oct 19, 2016
Still nothing. I sounds like they had telemetry until the lander was entering Mars' atmosphere, but before it was to reach the surface. Nothing since. So it might have burned up in Mars' thin atmosphere.
http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/10/19/exomars-mission-status-center/
RE: European Mars Lander - C C - Oct 20, 2016
The Mars jinx especially afflicted the old Soviet space program and continued with Russia afterwards. While the Beagle 2 failure along with the possibility of this one might hint that the bad luck could be shifting to the ESA, it will require more missions to create a lopsided ratio (and far more than that to equal the non-success magnitude of the former).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars