Ready to land: ‘life on Mars mission’
SPECIAL REPORT
BY KARIN GOODWIN
THE SCIENTIFIC community is “holding its breath” as a pivotal space mission designed to find evidence of life on Mars takes a giant leap forward today. The ExoMars mission, which launched seven months ago as a single spacecraft and has travelled half a billion kilometres across the solar system, will today break into two separate units. The separate crafts – a satellite designed to orbit the planet in the hope of detecting methane gas that would point to ev- idence of Martian life – and a landing unit, will break apart one million kilometres from Mars at 3.42pm UK time. The landing unit will touch down on the Martian surface on Wednesday.
If everything goes to plan, ExoMars, the first in a series of missions to be carried out in partnership between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russian space agency, Roscosmos, will not only be the first successful Mars landing for Europe but will also pave the way for a rover to explore the surface in 2020 and future manned landings.
Meanwhile, the satellite, called the Trace Gas Orbiter, will swing into orbit at an altitude of 400km, where it will monitor seasonal changes in the atmosphere’s composition and temperature as well as tracing hydrogen that could reveal deposits of water-ice hidden just below the surface, and build further evidence of Martian life. It will also highlight sites for future exploration.
However, Dr Colin Wilson of Oxford University, who built the wind sensor that is part of the landing unit’s weather station, warned that the landing poses potential dangers.
“Mars’ atmosphere is 50 times less dense than that of the Earth, which means that parachutes are that much less effective on Mars at slowing the landing craft,” he said. “The atmosphere means that Mars has weather, and winds and dust, which make landing more difficult and unpredictable than it would be on the airless moon.
“The landing craft has about six minutes to execute a lot of different steps in perfect sequence, to slow itself down from 20,000 kilometres per hour to a gentle landing on the surface – and all while it’s over a 100 million miles away from Earth.”
Wilson said that while all eyes would be on the landing unit (named the Schiaparelli after Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli) on Wednesday, it was the Trace Gas Orbiter that could unlock Mars’ secrets.
“Methane can be created by life, or by reactions between liquid water and minerals – either of which would be intriguing possibilities,” he added. “The Trace Gas Orbiter has been designed to map the variations of methane and related gases, so that we can understand whether their presence tells us anything about Martian life or liquid water.”
Dr Claire Cousins, researcher for St Andrew’s University’s department of Earth and Environmental Sciences – who is also involved in Nasa-funded Mars research – said that the scientific community would be “holding its breath” on Wednesday to see how well the landing system worked.
“There are always challenges in space exploration, especially when the goal is to safely land complex instruments on the surface of a planet millions of miles away,” she added. “This mission is actually part of a wider mission – ExoMars – which will follow this lander with a rover in a few years’ time. One of the key things this first half of the mission will do is test the entire descent and landing process that will be used for the rover for the very first time. BRITISH astronaut Tim Peake is due to touch down in Glasgow today as part of a two-day visit to Scotland, in which he will recount his experiences on board the International Space Station (ISS).
Peake, who has recently returned from a six month long mission on board the ISS, will visit space technology firm Clyde Space in Glasgow’s Finnieston as part of a post-flight UK-tour. During the visit he will meet staff and take part in a question-and-answer session with school pupils.
The 44-year-old, who famously made the first spacewalk by a British astronaut during his 186-day mission which finished in June, will then take part in an Edinburgh International Science Festival in partnership with European Space Agency and UK Space Agency on Monday. Along with NASA crewmate Tim Kopra he will share stories of living and working on the ISS.
Peake was chosen from a pool of 8,000 applicants in 2009 to join the European Space Agency astronaut training programme along with five other recruits and became the first person to fly to space under the UK banner since Helen Sharman in 1991.
“We are hoping that Schiaparelli will demonstrate an effective entry, descent, and landing system that can be used for the ExoMars rover in a few years’ time, and also for future missions. This is new territory for ESA, and, if successful, will pave the way for many future landed missions to Mars, which is very exciting for European science.”
Since the late sixties there have been a number of missions attempting to land on the surface of Mars, some such as the Viking 1 and 2 successful and others, including Beagle 2, ill-fated.