European Mars Lander begins three-day decent to Mars

Image courtesy: ESA/ATG medialab

New Delhi: A European Space Agency's tiny lander has embarked on its journey to the Martian and expected to reach its destination on Wednesday.

This experimental probe is aimed at exploring the atmosphere of the Red planet and searching sings of life there. The disc-shapped, 577-kilogramme (1,272 lb) Schiaparelli Mars Lander separated from its mothership, dubbed Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) on Sunday after a seven-month journey from the Earth and begins its three-day decent journey to the Mars planet.

Signals received from TGO, which is to orbit Mars and sniff out gases around the planet, did not at first contain data on the lander's onboard status, but the European Space Agency (ESA) later said the link with the craft had been restored, according to DNA .

This mission is a part of the European-Russian ExoMars programme. after a failed mission by Britain's Beagle 2 in 2003, Schiaparelli represents the second only attempt by Europe to land a spacecraft on Mars.

The main pupose of this Mars lander is to capture some close-up images of the Martian surfaces, conduct scientific measurements on the surfaces, and test technology for a future European Mars rover.