FRANKFURT: A Mars lander is due to leaveits mothership on Sunday and head toward the red planet´ssurface to test technologies for Europe´s planned first Marsrover, which will search for signs of past and present life.
After a seven-month journey from Earth as part of theEuropean-Russian ExoMars programme, the Schiaparelli lander isexpected to separate from spacecraft Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) at 1442 GMT and start a three-day descent to the surface.
Schiaparelli represents only the second European attempt toland a craft on Mars, after a failed mission by the Britishlanding craft Beagle 2 in 2003.Landing on Mars, Earth´s neighbour some 35 million miles (56million km) away, is a notoriously difficult task that hasbedevilled most Russian efforts and given NASA trouble as well.
The United States currently has two operational rovers on Mars,Curiosity and Opportunity.But a seemingly hostile environment has not detracted from
the allure of Mars, with U.S.President Barack Obama recentlyhighlighting his pledge to send people to the planet by the2030s.
Elon Musk´s SpaceX is developing a massive rocket andcapsule to transport large numbers of people and cargo to Marswith the ultimate goal of colonizing the planet, with Musksaying he would like to launch the first crew as early as 2024.The primary goal of ExoMars is to find out whether life hasever existed on Mars.
The current spacecraft carries anatmospheric probe to study trace gases such as methane, aroundthe planet.Scientists believe that methane, a chemical that on Earth isstrongly tied to life, could stem from micro-organisms thateither became extinct millions of years ago and left gas frozenbelow the planet´s surface, or that some methane-producingorganisms still survive.
The second part of the ExoMars mission, delayed to 2020 from2018, will deliver a European rover to the surface of Mars.Itwill be the first with the ability to both move across theplanet´s surface and drill into the ground to collect andanalyse samples.
The ExoMars 2016 mission is led by the European Space Agency(ESA), with Russia´s Roscosmos supplying the launcher and two ofthe four scientific instruments on the trace gas orbiter.
Theprime contractor is Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture betweenThales and Finmeccanica.The cost of the ExoMars mission to ESA, including the second
part due in 2020, is expected to be about 1.3 billion euros($1.4 billion).
Russia´s contribution comes on top of that.In 2018, NASA also plans to launch a Mars spacecraft, asatellite known as InSight and designed to study the deep
interior of Mars.