Mystery of spacecraft’s fate

Space: Experts speculate Mars lander may have ditched parachute too early

A European spacecraft that broke off contact as it attempted to land on Mars may have jettisoned its parachute too early, investigators believe.

Mystery surrounds the fate of Schiaparelli, which began its six-minute descent at 3.42pmUKtimeon Wednesday.

Scientists know that its heat shield functioned properly and its parachute deployed as planned at an altitude of 6.8 miles.

But something went wrong around the time the craft was due to eject its parachute and fire up three clusters of retro rockets before landing.

AstatementfromtheEuropean Space Agency (Esa) said: “The data have been partially analysed and confirm that the entry and descent stages occurred as expect e d , with events diverging from what was expected after the ejection of the back heat shield and parachute.

“This ejection itself appears to have occurred earlier than expected, but analysis is not yet complete.”

The nine retro rockets, which should have slowed the probe’s descent to less than 4.3mph before the craft dropped the final 6.5ft to the ground, were thought to have switched off “sooner than

The evidence points to Sciaparelli hitting the ground too fast and too expected”. hard, though this is yet to be confirmed.

Andrea Accomazzo, head of Esa’s planetary operations, said the probe’s data stream was cut off “in the order of 50 seconds” before the planned touchdown.

Speaking at Esa’s mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, he said: “Unfortunately we’re not in a position yet, butwe will be, to determine the dynamic condition at which the lander has touched the ground. Then we will know if it has survived structurally or not.”

He said the data showed the retro rockets firing for three or four seconds, “a time much shorter than we were expecting”.

Schiaparelli was only the second probe Esa has attempted to land on Mars. The first, Beagle 2, also suffered a radio blackout after detaching from its Mars Express mothership on Christmas Day 2003.

IF ONLY: An artist’s impression of how the Schiaparelli would have looked on Mars if the landing had gone well