Fate of ESA's Mars lander still unknown; India last country to receive signal: Report

ESA's Mars lander

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: The European Space Agency's Schiaparelli Mars lander that was expected to touch down on Red planet's surface on Wednesday is still untraceable.

However, as per reports, India is said to be the last country to receive a signal from the Schiaparelli lander.

Prior to atmospheric entry, contact via the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), the world's largest interferometric array, located near Pune, India, was established just after it began transmitting a beacon signal 75 minutes before reaching the upper layers of the Martian atmosphere.

However, the signal was lost some time prior to landing, ESA said.

A series of windows have been programmed to listen for signals coming from the lander via ESA'S Mars Express and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Atmosphere & Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) probes, it added.

ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) launched ExoMars 2016 probe in March this year to find if the Red Planet has traces of alien life.

While the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) of the ExoMars 2016 successfully performed the long 139-minute burn required to be captured by Mars and entered an elliptical orbit around the Red Planet on Wednesday, contact was lost with the mission's test lander from the surface

The TGO is now on its planned orbit around Mars.

(With IANS inputs)