Europe’s Mars lander parachute problems may be worse than thought

Enlarge / If the ExoMars spacecraft successfully lands on Mars, it will deploy the Rosalind Franklin rover. (credit: ESA)

In October 2016, Europe's small Schiaparelli lander entered the Martian atmosphere and attempted to touch down on the surface of the red planet. Due to an altitude measurement error, however, the lander's parachute system was released early, and the lander crashed into Mars.

When it comes to Mars, this was just another in a long line of failures. Of the 21 landers sent by humans to Mars over the last six decades, only eight have successfully reached the red planet's surface and conducted science operations—all of which were built and launched by NASA.

Now, the European Space Agency is trying again, with its ExoMars mission due to be launched on a Proton rocket next summer. According to the space agency, the European-built Rosalind Franklin rover and the Russian-led surface platform, Kazachok, are nearly complete. They are due to go down to the Martian surface in a descent module. This spacecraft has a rather complicated sequence of parachute releases to slow the lander's descent through the thin Martian atmosphere.