ExoMars (Exobiology on Mars), robotic exploration of Mars, ExoMars Rover, European Space Agency, Paris, France

Europe’s first Mars rover will have an unmatched capability to autonomously navigate up to 70 metres a day with no outside guidance from ground control. The extended Mars Yard provides a realistic and representative Mars environment to allow the Guidance, Navigation and Control team of the ExoMars rover project to finalise the sophisticated autonomous navigation system. The Mars Yard will be used up until launch and will also be kept available after the rover has landed on the surface of Mars in 2019 – if necessary to address any problem by simulating the situation on Earth. Manufacture of the flight rover will begin early in 2015 after construction of an advanced clean room for interplanetary missions at Airbus Defence and Space’s Stevenage site. Mission launch is planned for 2018.

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The ExoMars spacecraft is almost complete. A joint mission between ESA and Roscosmos, it begins with the launch of the ExoMars orbiter in 2016 and carries an aerodynamically designed capsule containing a robotic lander.

Getting to Mars, landing there safely and searching for life is a huge scientific and technical challenge. ExoMars 2016 will send back information about the Martian atmosphere and the lander’s findings. These will inform the second part of the mission, in 2018, when a European rover will drill into the Martian surface, up to two metres down. The rover will be trying to detect traces of organic molecules that indicate the presence of past or present life on Mars.

This video includes interviews with Jorge Vago, ExoMars Project Scientist, ESA and Pietro Baglioni, ExoMars Rover Manager, ESA. It shows ExoMars 2016 nearing construction in its clean room at Thales Alenia Space in France and a prototype ExoMars rover in the ExoMars test yard at ESA’s ESTEC facility in the Netherlands.

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Animation visualising milestones during the launch of the ExoMars 2016 mission and its cruise to Mars. The mission comprises the Trace Gas Orbiter and an entry, descent and landing demonstrator module, Schiaparelli, which are scheduled to be launched on a four-stage Proton-M/Breeze-M rocket from Baikonur during the 14–25 March 2016 window. About ten-and-a-half hours after launch, the spacecraft will separate from the rocket and deploy its solar wings. Two weeks later, its high-gain antenna will be deployed. After a seven-month cruise to Mars, Schiaparelli will separate from TGO on 16 October. Three days later it will enter the martian atmosphere, while TGO begins its entry into Mars orbit.

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The paths of the ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing demonstrator module arriving at Mars on 19 October (right and left, respectively). The counter begins at the start of a critical engine burn that TGO must conduct in order to enter Mars orbit. The altitude above Mars is also indicated, showing the arrival of Schiaparelli on the surface and the subsequent trajectory of TGO. The orbiter's initial 4-day orbit will be about 250 x 100 000 km. Starting in December 2016, the spacecraft will perform a series of aerobraking manoeuvres to steadily lower it into a circular, 400 km orbit (not shown here).

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The ExoMars 2016 spacecraft - consisting of the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing demonstrator - is in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, preparing for its mid-March launch on a Russian Proton rocket.

This joint European and Russian mission will test key exploration technologies and search for evidence of methane and other rare gases in the martian atmosphere. These gases could result from geological processes or they could be signatures of current biological activity on the planet. Three days before reaching Mars in October, Schiaparelli will separate from the orbiter and coast towards the planet in hibernation mode to reduce power consumption.

This video covers the journey, the orbit of the Trace Gas Orbiter, the separation of the Schiaparelli lander and its 20 000 km/hour descent and eventual landing. It also contains filming at ESA’s European Space and Technology Centre (ESTEC) Mars Yard in the Netherlands.

Learning more about Mars’ water and environment will shed further light on this planet - while knowing the origin of its methane could finally answer the exciting question of whether there is life on Mars.

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The ExoMars 2016 spacecraft will build on past missions to Mars. From the pioneering Viking missions onwards, our knowledge of Mars has been transformed and we now have an extraordinarily detailed picture of the planet. There are dust storms, polar ice caps and four distinct seasons. Mars has the largest volcanic mountain in our solar system and a canyon stretching over 5000 kilometres.

This film covers what we have learnt in particular from Europe’s Mars Express mission. Since its arrival in 2003, it has found evidence of water on Mars, discovered methane in the planet’s atmosphere, mapped the structure and composition of the south polar ice cap, discovered auroras and made the closest ever flybys of Phobos, one of Mars’ two moons. Mars Express also helped scientists select the landing site for the NASA Mars Curiosity rover, which arrived in Gale crater in 2012.More remains to be learnt from Mars. Not least, whether the methane results from geological activity or past or present life.

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After a successful launch from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in March, the ExoMars spacecraft is making good progress on its 500 million km trip to Mars.

The joint European and Russian mission will perform science, test lander and descent technology, and may help solve the mystery of why there is methane on Mars. The gas could indicate a geological origin or past or present life - most likely from microbes. The mission carries four scientific packages with Russia developing one of the three spectrometers on board the orbiter’s Atmospheric Chemistry Suite.

This film provides an update of ExoMars’ journey. It includes the first test image from the Trace Gas Orbiter’s high-resolution camera and looks ahead to a major course correction manoeuvre in July. The spacecraft will then be lined up for arrival at Mars on 19 October 2016.

Includes interviews with Thomas Passvogel, Head of Science Projects, ESA (English); Oleg Korablev, ACS Experiment Principal Investigator (Russian); Nicolas Thomas, CaSSIS Experiment Principal Investigator, University of Bern (English).

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On 16 October, seven months and 500 million km after launching from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, the joint European and Russian ExoMars 2016 mission reaches a crucial phase.

The Trace Gas Orbiter will release its Schiaparelli lander for a three day coast and a six minute descent to the Martian surface.The lander, which was designed to demonstrate technologies for entry, descent and landing on Mars, is heading for the Meridiani Planum. This is an area that is currently being studied by NASA’s Opportunity rover and Europe’s Mars Express orbiter.

On 19 October, the Schiaparelli lander will be activated a few hours before reaching the Martian atmosphere, when it will be travelling at some 21 000 km/h. The front heatshield – covered with 90 insulating tiles – will be subjected to temperatures of up to 1500 degrees Celsius.

This video covers the separation, descent and landing procedures, as well as the orbiter’s critical burn to avoid crashing on the surface of Mars.

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Thomas Walloschek, ESA engineer, talks about the goals of 2016 ExoMars mission.

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Animation visualising the ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), with its thrusters firing, beginning its entry into Mars orbit on 19 October 2016.

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As part of ExoMars 2016 mission, Schiaparelli module should have landed on Mars, but it might have crashed on 19 October 2016. During the descent, Schiaparelli was expected to capture images of the approaching surface. The sequence of the 15 images was simulated from images taken by the CTX context camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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New images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show Schiaparelli’s landing site. The bright spot may be Schiaparelli's 12-m diameter parachute and the dark area (15 x 40 metres in size) is likely the result of Schiaparelli’s impact. Estimates are that Schiaparelli dropped from a height of between 2 and 4 kilometres, therefore impacting at a considerable speed, greater than 300 km/h.

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On Mars there are dust storms, polar ice caps and four distinct seasons. This dynamic world has the largest volcanic mountain in our Solar System and a canyon stretching over 5000 kilometres. Its atmosphere also includes methane, which could result from geological processes or be signatures of current biological activity on the planet. The joint European and Russian ExoMars mission will test key exploration technologies and search for evidence of methane and other rare gases in the Martian atmosphere. This film is a recap of the science aims of the ExoMars 2016 mission, building on the findings of Europe’s Mars Express spacecraft.

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Images acquired by the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter on 22 November 2016: Arsia Chasmata, 1.4 km-diameter crater near the Mars equator, Stereo reconstruction of terrain in Noctis Labyrinthus.

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2016 has been an eventful and promising year for ESA’s ExoMars mission. After successfully placing the Trace Gas Orbiter into Mars’ orbit on 19 October, the orbiter has sent back its first images, tested its instruments and performed in orbit calibration measurements and health checks.

The Schiaparelli lander collected almost all of its expected data before its unexpected crash landing on the Martian surface. Crucial lessons will be learnt from this for the recently approved 2020 ExoMars mission, which will put Europe’s first rover on Mars.

The precise cause of the lander loss is still being investigated but preliminary technical investigations have found that the atmospheric entry and slowing down in the early phases went exactly as planned.

In all, since its launch in March 2016, the ExoMars mission has been a mixture of successes and one unexpected set back. Looking ahead, the Trace Gas Orbiter will start aerobraking in March 2017 to gradually slow down over the following months. By the end of 2017, the orbiter will be in a lower, near circular orbit of 400 kms and ExoMars’ primary science mission can begin.

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An overview animation of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter’s expected path around Mars between October 2016 and December 2017.

The spacecraft entered orbit on 19 October 2016, on a highly elliptical path that took it between about 250 km and 98 000 km from the planet in about 4.2 days.

The main science mission is intended to take place from a near-circular 400 km orbit, starting in early 2018. The spacecraft will achieve this orbit by aerobraking – using the planet’s atmosphere to slow down gradually.First, on 19 January 2017, the angle of the orbit will be changed to 74? with respect to the equator, so that science observations can cover most of the planet.

Next, to get into an aerobraking orbit, the craft will fire its thrusters in early February to reach 200 x 33 475 km, which will also reduce its orbital period to 24 hours.

Aerobraking is planned to begin on 15 March, with a series of seven manoeuvres – about one every three days – that will steadily lower the craft’s altitude at its point of closest approach, from 200 km to about 114 km. Then the atmosphere will take over, gradually reducing the most distant part of the orbit.

Final manoeuvres are expected at the end of 2017 to circularise the orbit at an altitude of about 400 km, whereupon the science mission can begin.

The animation is based on data available as of end-2016, but the actual timing of the various manoeuvres may be subject to change as operational plans develop during 2017.

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Europe’s first Mars rover will have an unmatched capability to autonomously navigate up to 70 metres a day with no outside guidance from ground control.

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ExoMars is ready for Martian science!

ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter mission arrived at Mars in October 2016. After a year spent carefully adjusting its position, the spacecraft is now beginning its science operations.

The Trace Gas Orbiter’s instruments will be able to look through the atmosphere to identify trace gases – in particular methane – which could indicate signs of past or even present life. The orbiter will also act as a relay for rovers on the Martian surface.

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