21 Oct 2016

Keep Wednesday 19 October free. Italy's going to Mars. After a seven month journey for the European and RussianExoMars 2016 mission, it's nearly time to “take” the red planet. It'll be a war on two fronts: ExoMars will need to conquer Mars from both the earth and sky almost at the same time.

Operations will begin on 16 October, when the Schiaparellidescent module will undock from the mother probe. After separation, the lander, built by an Italian-led team, will aim for the surface of Mars while the Trace Gas Orbiter will continue moving closer to the planet.
D-day will be Wednesday 19. The TGO will need to enter orbit around the red planet while Schiaparelli will plunge into the Martian atmosphere at around 21,000 km per hour.

Thanks to a sophisticated system of parachutes and braking engines, the lander will slow before landing close to the Martian equator, on the Meridiani Planum.
This will be the most critical phase of the mission and will be over in a couple of minutes. Just under six. 360 seconds of terror that recall the descent to Mars of the lander's American “colleague” Curiosity. Confirmation of Schiaparelli's touchdownis expected on Earth after 6.33 pm, while the TGO should communicate its correct entry into orbit from 8.25 pm onwards.

Another Italian instrument, the Radar Doppler Alitmeter (RDA), mounted on the lander and built in the Thales Alenia Space facilities in Rome, will also be playing a crucial role in this complex phase. This sophisticated Ka-band radar will allow for the rapid final phase necessary for reaching the surface of Mars, lasting less than 100 seconds, to be managed in complete independence from Earth.
Europe will be awaiting the arrival of the two signals at thePalazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, where the official international event Italy goes to Mars will be held, organised by the Italian Space Agency together with ESA, INAF, Leonardo-Finmeccanica, Thales Alenia Space Italia and the National Geographic Channel. The event will include a preview of the first show of the series by Ron Howard and produced by the FOXchannel.

A parallel event will also be held at the ASI offices in Tor Vergata. The long ExoMars marathon can be followed in live streaming on ASITV, on live video on the Italian Space Agency's Facebook page and on Twitter with the hashtag #italiavasumarte.
The ExoMars program is the result of international cooperation between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), with strong support from the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The Program was developed by a European consortium led by Thales Alenia Space Italia, set up by Thales Alenia Space (a joint venture between Thales 67% and Leonardo-Finmeccanica 33%), involving around 134 space companies from ESA partner countries. Thales Alenia Space Italia, prime contractor in the ExoMars program, is responsible for planning both the 2016 and 2020 mission. Lastly, Telespazio (Leonardo-Finmeccanica 67%, Thales 33%) is responsible for developing some of the key systems for the Earth segment of the mission, including the Mission Control System, used to monitor and control the TGO in 2016.

Leonardo is also contributing to the 2016 mission by providing many of the technological instruments on board ExoMars: from star trackers to photovoltaic generators and power transformation and distribution units, through to the optronic systems at the heart of the CASSIS observation instrument.