ExoMars to go forward

(ANSA) - Rome, October 20 - Despite the rough landing that has silenced the Schiaparelli lander during the European Space Agency's (ESA) ExoMars mission, valuable info is being received from another part of the mission and bodes well for the 2020 phase, Italy's space agency chief Roberto Battiston said Thursday. He added that the second phase of the mission, a bilateral effort with the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, will be discussed at the ESA government ministers' meeting on December 1-2 in Lucerne, Switzerland. "In terms of the quantity and quality of data that we are receiving, ExoMars has been a successful mission. Europe has a satellite in the Mars orbit," Battiston said in referring to the Trace Gas Orbiter satellite.
    "It is entirely in the orbit and operative," he continued, "and therefore able to monitor and transmit data on the composition of the atmosphere on Mars." On the Schiaparelli lander, the signal to which was lost a minute before the completion of its descent onto Mars, Battiston said that it was a test and that " it seems that it performed all the maneuvers scheduled until a few seconds prior to contact with the ground, such as the opening of the parachute, the detaching from the thermal shield and the ignition of the brake rockets. We don't have the data from the last few seconds yet, on which technicians are working. Overall, we are encouraged to continue the work for ExoMars 2020, one of the main issues to be discussed at the ministerial meeting."