ESA, Russia now know what caused Europe's Mars lander to crash
European Space Agency has been investigating how the Mars lander crash-landed in the Red Planet last October. But this time they finally arrived with the better idea of what really was the cause. It was due to a glitch in its navigation system that the Schiaparelli lander, the joint alien life-hunting mission of Europe and Russia crashed into the surface of Mars.
According to Mashable, It was explained that as Schiaparelli was going in for touchdown its navigation computer wrongly calculated the altitude. It caused the onboard computer to expect that it was safe to land on the ground. That triggered the jettisoning of the lander's parachute and backshell plus the brief firing of its braking thrusters.
The distance from the lander above the Mars surface was 3.7 when that occurred. If the lander was much closer than this distance then it would be nice but otherwise had happened that led to the creating of a new crater on the red planet of the lander.
Although this conclusion was figured but it still can be considered very preliminary. As David Parker, the ESA's director of human spaceflight and robotic exploration said, the full picture will be provided in early 2017. The future report for an external independent inquiry board is now set up.
Though the mission was failed, but learning the technology needed basing from what happened with the lander are very helpful for future plan to launch another mission. In fact, Europe and Russia are planning to launch again after 4 years from now.
The Trace Gas Orbiter, the companion spacecraft of that ill-fated Schiaparelli is now gathering data about Mars' atmosphere.
As Headlines-News reported, "The mission of the Exomars is to search for any signs of life in Mars, past or current. The idea is that, that if there was life in the red planet before, it would have left some traces."
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