Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2016

whilst not wanting to go into unneces- sary detail, it is worth recalling that the ini- tial project dates back to more than 10 years ago and that it has been revised sev- eral times to take account of the changing financial resources of the various space agencies that through alternating phases expressed support for it. Eventually Exo- Mars was back on track thanks to ESA (the European Space Agency) and Roscosmos (the Russian Space Agency), who planned to split the programme into two different missions: ExoMars 2016 and ExoMars 2018. The first is the one currently underway and has essentially the task of paving the way for the second mission, whose implemen- tation will be probably delayed to 2020, due to current insufficient funds. The two ExoMars 2016 probes have very different tasks. After having travelled to- gether towards Mars for seven months, on 16 October they will separate and Schiapa- relli (weighing about 600 kg) will begin its descent to the Martian surface, which it will reach three days later, when the Trace Gas Orbiter (over 3.5 tons) will enter into a temporary orbit around Mars. Schiaparelli will basically have the task of demonstrating the validity of new landing procedures and technologies that will then be used for the ExoMars 2018 lander, which consists of a combined surface platform of about 1.8 tons and a mobile rover weigh- ing just over 200 kg. During the descent, with its multisensor instrument called DRE- AMS (Dust Characterisation, Risk Assess- T he key stages of Schiapa- relli’s descent to- wards the sur- face of Mars. [ESA/ ATG medialab]