Posted on 10/20/2016 8:10:01 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Schiaparelli was scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet Wednesday at 10:48 a.m. EDT (1448 GMT). But the spacecraft's handlers could not confirm a successful landing, and were left waiting on a signal. Meanwhile, Schiaparelli's mother ship, the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), successfully entered orbit around Mars.
Schiaparelli had been programmed to follow a demanding 6-minute landing sequence that would see the capsule come to a halt from about 13,000 mph (21,000 km/h).
The first phases of this sequence went according to plan, Andrea Accomazzo, head of ESA's solar and planetary missions, said at the news conference from ESA's operations center in Darmstadt, Germany.
The lander sailed through the upper layers of the Martian atmosphere as expected, and its supersonic parachute deployed on time — important indications that "the heat shield has worked flawlessly," Accomazzo said. But the ejection of the back heat shield and parachute occurred earlier than planned, he added.
"Following this phase, the lander has definitely not behaved exactly as we expected," Accomazzo said
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE....
“HERE BE DRAGONS!”
It’s aliens.
The Great Knights of Barsoom used it for skeet practice.
Mars is an angry planet. The USA finally conquered it back in 1975, and we have still had a few mishaps since. I don’t believe any other country(s) have had any success landing there.... USA.. USA.. USA... (I know, I know, racist or something)...
so what did it do , flip over and land on it’s Face ?
In the argot of space exploration, it's the GGG - Great Galactic Ghoul.
It appears there are areas we are allowed to see and areas we are not.
From looking at the probable landing area yesterday, it was almost on top of the current location of the Opportunity rover.
Not that they were trying to hit it, but were off course down and to the right of the nearest of the four desired landing choices.
I wasn't impressed on where they were trying to land. From strictly a scatter diagram, they were trying to put it in a somewhat "congested" area, but they were taking terrain into consideration.
“Sweet dreams and flying machines, in pieces on the ground.”
Or, it’s simply not all that easy to get there.
Yes, that is a possibility. But so many get there, and fail on the landing.
BRAKES FAILED!
Those that use the metric system....
....and those that put men on the Moon.
Aha!
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