Pune and Mars Express tagged posts

Artist impression of the Schiaparelli module after the parachute has been deployed. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

Essential data from ExoMars Schiaparelli lander sent to its mothership Trace Gas Orbiter, TGO during the module’s descent to the Red Planet’s surface yesterday has been downlinked to Earth and is currently being analysed by experts. Early indications from both the radio signals captured by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), an experimental telescope array located near Pune, India, and from orbit by ESA’s Mars Express, suggested the module had successfully completed most steps of its 6-minute descent through the martian atmosphere. This included the deceleration through the atmosphere, and the parachute and heat shield deployment, for example.

But the signals recorded by bot...