Space missions, even the most noble ones, can get confusing with their mishmash of tech terms and timetables. We've boiled down ExoMars to the basics.
Image: ESA
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The ExoMars mission: Phase 1 begins
The goal of the ExoMars mission is to search for traces of life on Mars. The first phase of the mission will search for the best place to do so on the red planet.
Image: ESA
All fueled up
More than a decade's worth of work is tucked inside the body of this Russian Proton-M rocket: the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Schiaparelli EDM lander. The rocket, having just been fueled, was moved to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 10, 2016, where it was raised upright. Historically, the Proton rocket has a failure rate of 10 percent.
Image: ESA
Separation
Hours after the launch, the orbiter (black) and lander (gold) will emerge from the rocket's shell. Thus begins their seven-month journey to Mars. The Earth-Mars orbital alignment is favorable to this portion of the ExoMars mission, meaning the journey is a relatively short one.
Image: ESA
Goodbye, friend
Having accompanied each other through empty space for more than 200 days, the lander and orbiter will detach from one another three days before reaching Mars. The time is late October. For the rest of their robotic lives, they're on their own.
Image: ESA
Down it goes!
And the lander's off! At this point it's traveling at more than 20,000 kilometers per hour (12,500 miles per hour, or about 3 miles per second). Its destination is predetermined: Meridiani Planum, a flat, broad plain rich in hematite, which on Earth is often formed in hot springs. Things are about to get hot...
Image: ESA
Soft landing
Mars' atmosphere will "drag" or slow the lander, allowing it to deploy a parachute (model seen here) to reduce its velocity to roughly 200 kilometers per hour (120 MPH). When its height above the surface reaches 1.2 kilometers, the cord will sever and the lander will deploy thrusters to slow its descent and land.
Image: ESA
Tasting the air
Once on Mars, a variety of instruments inside the lander will collect various atmospheric data over a period of four days. This will give Europe's and Russia's space agencies critical information for a future rover landing. When the four days are up, Schiaparelli's battery will run out. Its mission is over.
Image: ESA
Great view up here!
Meanwhile, the orbiter will still be scooting around up above. The jets seen here will only be deployed initially - to change an elliptical orbit into a circular one.
Image: ESA
Something smells
At that point, the orbiter's job for the next few years will be to "sniff" Mars' atmosphere for traces of methane gas. Scientists in Europe and Russia will be analyzing this data to determine the best spot to aim their rover. Methane could be a clue to biological activity - a sign of life on Mars.
Image: ESA
The ExoMars rover
A 2018 follow-up launch will send the ExoMars rover toward a predetermined point on the red planet - likely Oxia Planum, which is 3,000 meters below the Martian mean and which is rich in iron-magnesium. That means water might have played a role there. See that dark gray cylinder on the front...?
Image: ESA
Drill, baby, drill!
That's the drill that will collect "cores" of Martian soil (prototype above). The hope is that when it's analyzed inside the machine through an organic molecule analyzer, it will yield signs that biological activity once occurred there. The earliest that would happen is 2019 (and maybe 2021). But it would be enormously historic. It would be the first direct evidence of life on Mars.
Image: ESA
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Two important pieces of equipment will be on board the Russian rocket when it blasts off from Kazakhstan:
1. An orbiter
This glorified box with solar-panels and a dish on top will do loops around Mars - twice per day. It'll be "sniffing" the atmosphere for traces of methane gas all the while. Why methane? Because methane is usually the result of a biological interaction (read "LIFE!") - at least here on Earth. That's the whole purpose of the ExoMars mission: to search for signs of life, past or present, on the red planet. Methane was detected a few years ago by a NASA rover, so it is there. The orbiter will try to sniff out the richest pockets of it.
2. A lander
Shaped like a Hershey's kiss, this module will parachute and then reverse-rocket its way down onto a wide, flat Martian plain. It will then have just four Martian days to monitor various things - like how much dust is in the air (it will land during dust storm season), what the weather's like and how electrical the air is. The lander will beam this data back to the orbiter above, which will then relay it back to Earth. Then, after four days, the lander will die.
If it seems like a waste, the lander's real role is to play crash-test dummy. This is a trial-run, a bit like inspecting the runway before landing a plane on it. Or a rover.
3. The ExoMars rover
The rover is 300 kilos (650 pounds), has six wheels and sports a dual camera that will take wonderfully high-res panoramic pictures in true color. Yippee!
More importantly, it has a drill. The drill sink up to two meters (6.6 feet) into Mars' surface, retrieving "cores" of the soil. Since the rover is never, ever coming back to Earth, that soil will be analyzed inside the rover, and the data will be beamed up to the orbitor and then back home.
The most important sensor: the organic molecule analyzer. That's the tool that will potentially find signs of life. (It's being developed right now by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen in central Germany, and one component, a laser, will be built in Hanover by the Laser Zentrum.)
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The time-frame
To sum up, here's the ExoMars plan:
The orbiter/lander launch on March 14, 2016.
They then fly through space, reaching Mars in October 2016.
Four days later, the lander 'dies.' But the orbiter lives on and keeps on orbiting.
In 2018 (or maybe 2020), a rocket takes off with the rover inside.
Tghe rover inside it flies through space (inside a spacecraft) and lands on Mars in 2019 (or 2021).
