Spacecraft are tricky … and engineering is an art form | Jan Woerner’s blog
▻http://blogs.esa.int/janwoerner/2016/10/21/spacecraft-are-tricky-and-engineering-is-an-art-form
On Wednesday, 19 October, TGO was successfully inserted into its intended orbit. This is the precondition for it to carry out its assigned task of gathering data from the Martian atmosphere to investigate, in particular, methane and its origin. The open question to which we are seeking an answer concerns the existence of life on Mars today or in the past.
While TGO was achieving orbit insertion around Mars, the test lander was making its way to the planet’s surface. It then had to perform a very complex set of procedures that included atmospheric entry, parachute deployment, heat shield separation, parachute separation, starting its thrusters and finally, a semi-soft touchdown.
During the descent, signal transmission from the lander suddenly stopped and could no longer be received. Once TGO’s orbit insertion had been confirmed, all the focus switched to the situation with the lander.
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Some people have asked about the success of the 2016 mission so far. For the number-crunchers among them the following observation may be helpful:
The importance of TGO and EDM can be described as 80% vs. 20%, respectively. Since we obtained at least 80% of the data during the descent, the overall success rate can be calculated as follows: 80+20*0.8 = 96%. All in all, a very positive result.
So to sum up where we stand, we have achieved a successful orbit insertion of TGO, ready to perform science and act as a relay station for ExoMars 2020 ground science. Not only that, but we have received a large quantity of data from the lander giving us crucial information to help us perform a successful landing of the next mission.
