Europe will launch a spacecraft to Mars next week

The European Aeronautics Agency (ESA) has officially launched the ExoMars program, whereby the Schiaparelli spacecraft will be launched into space and head towards Mars on October 19.

ExoMars is ESA's Mars mission, launched on March 14th. The first two means of mission are the Schiaparelli amphibious ship and the Trace Gas Orbiter orbiter. When the orbit explores to Mars orbit, the Schiaparelli surface probe will be dropped and landed on Mars three days later.

Image of Schiaparelli lander simulation when landing on Mars surface.(Photo: European Space Agency / ATG Medialab).

While the Schiaparelli amphibious ship will probe properties on the surface of the red planet, the Trace Gas Orbiter will circumnavigate Mars in orbit to probe from above and analyze the planet's atmosphere.

The Schiaparelli will land in the Meridiani Planum plain of Mars, which is near the equator of the red planet. From the trajectory, the ship Schiaparelli will be dropped to the ground at a speed of 21,000km / hour, after which it will slow down for 6 minutes to safely land.

Schiaparelli's landing process of landing from the trajectory to the surface.(Photo: European Space Agency / ATG Medialab).

In addition, to increase safety, the sensor of the lander will track the height of the ship. When the ship descends from 7km to 2m, the ship will start to hover, the propulsion temporarily stops working and will fall freely slowly to the ground.

Once safely grounded, the Schiaparelli amphibious ship will study wind speed and direction, humidity, pressure, air temperature and many other things about Mars. The measurement data will be sent to the Trace Gas Orbiter, which is floating in orbit. This is the first mission of the ExoMars program to pave the way for other missions to Mars in the future.