Schiaparelli EDM

Schiaparelli EDM (Italian: [skjapaˈrɛlli]) was a failed Entry, Descent, and Landing Demonstrator Module (EDM) of the ExoMars programme—a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos. It was built in Italy and was intended to test technology for future soft landings on the surface of Mars. It also had a limited but focused science payload that would have measured atmospheric electricity on Mars and local meteorological conditions. Launched together with the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) on 14 March 2016, Schiaparelli attempted a landing on 19 October 2016. Telemetry signals from Schiaparelli, monitored in real time by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in India (and confirmed by Mars Express), were lost about one minute from the surface during the final landing stages. On 21 October 2016, NASA released an image by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showing what appears to be the lander's crash site. The telemetry data accumulated and relayed by ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express were used to investigate the failure modes of the landing technology employed.

Namesake

The Schiaparelli Entry, Descent, and Landing Demonstrator module is named for Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835–1910), an astronomer active in the 19th century who made Mars observations. In particular, he recorded features he called canali in his native Italian. His observations of what translates as channels in English inspired many. The dark streaks on Mars are an albedo feature which is related to dust distribution; these albedo features on Mars slowly change over time, and in the last few decades have been monitored by Mars orbiters. Schiaparelli is famous for making hand-drawn maps of Mars during its 1877 oppositions with Earth with an optical refracting telescope. He was also the first astronomer to determine the relationship between comet debris and yearly meteor showers. Other things named for Schiaparelli include the main-belt asteroid 4062 Schiaparelli, named on 15 September 1989 (M.P.C. 15090), the lunar crater Schiaparelli, the Martian crater Schiaparelli, Schiaparelli Dorsum on Mercury, and the 2016 ExoMars EDM lander. The mission was named in November 2013; previously it was known as the Exomars Entry, descent and landing Demonstrator Module, or ExoMars EDM for short. Another name was ExoMars static lander, however some designs for what was the static lander are quite different due to various stages of design and program restructuring. Another name, especially for both orbiter and lander together is ExoMars 2016.

Origins and development

The EDM traces itself back to the ESA Aurora programme, which has the goal of human exploration of space, and thus producing missions that are building blocks to support this goal. ExoMars originated out of this, and provides context for understanding the EDM. Schiaparelli forms an important "block" of learning how to land heavy payloads on Mars, which is vital to future crewed missions. Another "block" is the ExoMars rover, which is intended to demonstrate among other things the ability to traverse several km/miles on the surface of Mars. The Aurora program is focused on two types of the mission, one are larger flagship spacecraft and the other are smaller missions specifically meant to offload risk from the larger missions. In 2005 the ESA council approved 650 million Euros for a Mars rover and static lander. At this time the idea was for a single launch bringing both a Mars Exploration Rover class rover and instrumented static lander to Mars with a simpler cruise stage;in this case the static lander both landed the rover and performed its own studies. However to accomplish its mission goals within the constraints of using a Soyuz rocket for launch, the rover was budgeted for just 6 kg. To enable a larger rover, the Ariane V, Atlas V, and Proton were evaluated. Rovers from 180 kg up to 600 kg were considered, and eventually the idea of test lander to offload risk from the rover lander arose, which fitted well with a two-launch strategy allowing a heavier orbiter and a heavier rover on the second launch. Early in development, the lander was to be carried by a dedicated cruise stage called the Carrier Module. Eventually, the Trace Gas Orbiter mission was merged into ExoMars, becoming the carrier for the EDM.

Overview Although the lander crashed, the data transmitted from Schiaparelli are expected to provide ESA and Roscosmos with the technology for landing on the surface of Mars with a controlled soft landing. This technology will be used by the Rosalind Franklin rover, part of the ExoMars programme, which was due to launch in 2022. The rovers' launch has been delayed as a consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In July 2022, ESA terminated its cooperation on the project with Russia. As of May 2022, the launch of the rover is not expected to occur before 2028 due to the need for a new non-Russian landing platform.

Pre-launch The 577 kg (1,272 lb) descent module Schiaparelli and orbiter completed testing and were integrated to a Proton-M rocket at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Baikonur in mid-January 2016. TGO and EDM arrived at Baikonur in December 2015. In February the spacecraft was mounted to the Briz-M upper stage, and in early March that was attached to the Proton rocket.

Liftoff The launch occurred at 09:31 GMT (15:31 local time) on 14 March 2016. Four rocket burns occurred in the following 10 hours before the descent module and orbiter were released. A signal from the orbiter was received at 21:29 GMT that day, confirming that the launch was successful and the spacecraft was functioning properly. Shortly after separation from the probes, the Briz-M upper booster stage exploded a few kilometres away, without damaging the orbiter or lander.

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