ExoMars 2016

Chronology

Mission timeline

1. March 14, 2016, 09:31 UTC

   Launch

   Launched on a Proton with a Breeze M upper stage

   ExoMars 2016 launched at 09:31 UT on 14 March 2016 on a Proton rocket with a Breeze M upper stage from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and the launch/orbital information page gives the same instant as 2016-03-14T09:31:00Z. NSSDCA's Funding Agency line reads European Space Agency (International) and prints no country, so the country here is narrower than the mission and is recorded that way rather than filled in: ESA's own FAQ says the programme is a cooperation between ESA and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, that Roscosmos is providing the Proton rockets, and that two of the four science instrument packages on the TGO are Russian-led. The same page lists the sixteen European states and four non-European states whose contractors make up the programme's industrial team, which is a statement about the programme rather than about this mission's hardware, and is not committed here.

   Earth
2. October 16, 2016, 14:42 UTC

   Deployment

   Schiaparelli released three days before Mars arrival

   Three days prior to reaching Mars, on 16 October, the Schiaparelli lander was released as planned at 14:42 UT. The two pages disagree on its mass: NSSDCA prints a total mass of 600 kg for Schiaparelli in two places, and ESA's factsheet prints 577 kg beside a TGO orbiter mass of 3732 kg inside the same 4332 kg launch mass. The disagreement is recorded rather than resolved and no mass is committed as a value. NSSDCA prints the release day without a year in a paragraph whose year is two sentences away, so the full date here comes from ESA's account of Schiaparelli's landing, which prints separate from TGO on 16 October 2016.

   Mars
3. October 19, 2016

   Orbit insertion

   The orbiter entered a four-day elliptical capture orbit

   After releasing Schiaparelli the Trace Gas Orbiter maneuvered to put itself into a 4-day, 98000 x 200 km elliptical orbit around Mars. ESA's factsheet dates the orbiter insertion into Mars orbit to 19 October 2016 and gives no time; NSSDCA gives no date for that maneuver at all, so this event carries the day ESA publishes.

   Mars
4. October 19, 2016, 14:42 UTC

   Impact

   A navigation anomaly left Schiaparelli in free fall for the final 3.7 km

   It entered the martian atmosphere on 19 October at 14:42 UT, 122.5 km altitude at approximately 21,000 km/hr, and initially decelerated using the aeroshell heatshield. At an altitude of about 11 km and a velocity of 1650 km/hr the parachute was deployed. The front heat shield was released and the radar altimeter deployed at about 7 km altitude. An anomaly in the navigation system resulted in premature release of the rear heatshield and parachute and firing of the landing thrusters, causing the spacecraft to free fall the final 3.7 km, which it could not survive. ESA's factsheet records that Schiaparelli did not land successfully so not all instruments were used, and that AMELIA and COMARS+ returned important data from the descent.

   Mars
5. March 2018

   Milestone

   Aerobraking completed and the science phase began

   In March 2017 it started using aerobraking orbits, dipping into the upper martian atmosphere. It completed the effort on 20 February 2018 with a thruster firing to bring it into a 1050 x 200 km orbit. It then maneuvered over the next two months to bring it into its circular, roughly 2-hour, 400-km altitude science orbit. ESA's factsheet dates aerobraking March 2017 - March 2018 and the science phase beginning to March 2018, which is the month committed here.

   Mars
6. 2026

   Milestone

   Still one of ESA's two Mars orbiters in 2026

   ESA's account of the May 2024 solar superstorm at Mars, fetched on 2026-09-02, says ESA's two Mars Orbiters - Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) - were in the right place at the right time, with a radiation monitor aboard TGO picking up a dose equivalent to 200 normal days in just 64 hours, and says that currently we're only performing two observations per week at Mars. THE YEAR IS COMMITTED AND NO PUBLICATION DAY IS, because the committed excerpt of that page carries no date at all: the day this event used to commit was read off the page's own dateline and never put in the excerpt, and 2026 is the year of the fetch this source records. The excerpt names Colin Wilson as ESA project scientist for Mars Express and TGO before an elision, and this record does not attribute the sentence after that elision to him. That page is what supports this record's active status: NSSDCA's page is older and says the nominal end of the Trace Gas Orbiter mission is in 2022.

   Mars

Mission architecture

Vehicles

• ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter · Orbiter

  Destinations: Mars

  • Schiaparelli · Lander

    Destinations: Mars