European Space Agency says fate of Schiaparelli Mars lander unclear

A senior European Space Agency official says that the signal from the experimental Schiaparelli probe cut off before its landing on Mars, which he says isn't a good sign.

Paolo Ferri, ESA's head of operations, said the signal "stopped shortly before landing."

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He cautioned that more analysis of the data was needed to understand what had happened to the lander during Wednesday's descent.

He says it is too soon to jump to conclusions but "it's clear that these are not good signs."

He said that an update is expected on Thursday.

The probe was scheduled to enter the Martian atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. ET and land six minutes later.

It's a challenging landing: theSchiaparellientered the atmosphere at a speed of nearly 21,000 km/h. After that, it was supposed to beslowed by atmospheric drag, at which point itwas meant to deploya parachute and thrusters to slow it down to come to a safe landing on the planet.

Don McCoy, theExoMarsproject manager, said some data had been received from theSchiaparellilander confirming its entry on Wednesday and the deployment of its parachute but they have not been able to determine the state of the lander.

The lander only hadone chance to get captured by Mars' gravity and descend onto the surface of the Red Planet.

But it's not all (potentially) bad news theESA successfully put Schiaparelli's mother ship, the Trace Gas Orbiter, into orbit around Mars.

Notoriously difficult landing

If the landing is a success, the landerwill take images of Mars and conduct scientific measurements on the surface but its main purpose is to test technology for a future European Mars rover.

While there are already landers and rovers on Mars, the stakes for this mission are high for the ESA, whose only previous attempt to land something on the planet failed.

The Beagle 2 disappeared during the landing process in 2003 and was declared lost after several months. It wasn't located until January 2015, when new photos from an orbiter showed that it had reached the surface but failed to deploy fully and start communicating.

But as of Tuesday, the ExoMarsmission a joint venture between ESA and Russian's Roscosmosspace agencywasgoing smoothly.

TheSchiaparellilander separated from its mothership,Trace Gas Orbiter(TGO),as scheduled on Sunday, flight director Michel Denis announced to applause at control centre inDarmstadt, Germany.

Both crafts launched in March.

TGOwill remain in orbit analyzing methane and other gases in the Martian atmosphere to help determine whether there is or was life on Mars.Methane is created by biological or geological activity and breaks down within a relatively short period of time once it reaches the atmosphere.

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The 577-kilogram lander is expected to collect data during its descent and operate on the surface for a few days. The lander carries sensors designed to measure wind speed and direction, humidity, temperature and electric fields.

In the next stage of the ExoMars program, ESA plans to send a rover to Mars in 2020, equipped with a drill and instruments dedicated to geochemistry and the search for life.

The prospect of finding life on Mars, even microscopic organisms, has excited scientists for some time but so far none has been discovered.

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