Europe’s Mars lander is feared lost

The Schiaparelli lander, part of the joint life-hunting ExoMars mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia, was expected to make its soft touchdown on the Martian surface Wednesday, but something went wrong. 

The ESA was receiving a faint but present signal from the lander for much of Schiaparelli's descent to the surface. However, in the final moments just before landing — when the craft was supposed to fire its thrusters — that signal was lost. 

ESA Spacecraft Operations Manager Andrea Accomazzo said in a press briefing that the lander stopped transmitting about 50 seconds before the expected touchdown time. 

Mission managers then analyzed data from the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft orbiting Mars, but that came back inconclusive.

At the press briefing, the agency emphasised that the lander's purpose was to collect data, and it had accomplished that.

“From the engineering standpoint, it’s what we want from a test, and we have extremely valuable data to work with. We will have an enquiry board to dig deeper into the data and we cannot speculate further at this time,” said David Parker, ESA’s Director of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration.