A tiny lander dispatched to Mars on a trial run has crashed and possibly exploded on the Red Planet. European Space Agency (ESA) mission control said, this while confirming Europe’s second failed attempt to reach the alien surface.
It said, a NASA photograph of the intended landing site revealed the 600-kilogramme craft, offline for two days, had “reached the Martian surface a lot faster than intended.
The image contained a white spot, thought to be the doomed lander’s parachute spread out on the alien surface, some 170 million kilometres from Earth.
The ESA said, the lander’s speed-breaking retro-rocket boosters appeared to have switched off prematurely.
Engineers and scientists are combing through the data Schiaparelli sent home before its untimely demise, to piece together exactly what happened.
Schiaparelli was on a test-run for a future rover meant to seek out evidence of life, past or present, on the Red Planet.