Landing on Mars

Schiaparelli Landing via ESA

Mars is getting a new visitor this week! It has been over four years since the last rover, Curiosity, landed on the red planet.This time it is the European Space Agency (ESA) that is sending a spacecraft to grace the surface of Mars to search for life. Earlier today, the final stages of the ESA’s ExoMars‘s decent began. Its lander, Schiaparelli, separated from the spacecraft that brought it there.

ExoMars 2016 separation via ESA

Now Schiaparelli is getting ready for its big job this week: landing. Everyone is pretty excited for the spacecraft’s October 19th arrival and so there are a whole slew of events for us to tune in to. You can catch all these on ESA’s livestream here and all of the events on ExoMars’s timeline here.

October 19th
9:00am EDT (13:00 GMT) Coverage begins of orbit insertion/landing
10:57 am EDT (14:57 GMT) Schiaparelli lands on Mars
11:15 am EDT (15:15 GMT) Coverage ends of orbit insertion/landing
11:44 am -12:59 pm EDT(15:44–16:59 GMT) Communication with Schiaparelli
2:25 pm – 4:03 pm EDT (18:25–20:03 GMT) Continued Live Coverage

October 20th
4:00am EDT (8:00 GMT) Press briefing including first images of Mars taken by the Schiaparelli descent camera