European craft ‘smashed’ in Mars

PARIS: A tiny European craft despatched to Mars for a trial touchdown on Wednesday “crashed” into pieces on the Red Planet’s surface instead, a European Space Agency mission manager said on Friday.

A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) photograph of the intended landing site confirmed the Schiaparelli craft, missing for two days, had “crashed on the surface of Mars”, Thierry Blancquaert said from mission control in Darmstadt, Germany.

Flight operations manager Michel Denis added that an image by Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed a “white spot, consistent with a parachute”.

“About 2km away, there is a black spot... most likely Schiaparelli’s point of impact”.

The black spot was “larger than it would have been if Schiaparelli was in one piece“, said Denis.

“It is smashed.” AFP