New Delhi:
Images from a Nasa Mars orbiter indicate that missing European Space ‘Schiaparelli probe’ was destroyed on impact after plummeting to the surface of the red planet from a height of 2-4km, the European Space Agency said on Friday.
The disc-shaped probe, 55-KG (1,272lb) Schiaparelli probe was a part of the Russian-European ExoMars program to search for evidence of life on Mars, descended on Wednesday to test technologies for a rover that scientists hope to send to the surface of the planet in 2020.But contact with the vehicle was lost about 50 seconds before the expected landing time.
Schiaparelli reached the ground with a velocity that was much higher than it should have been, several hundred kilometers per hour, and was then unfortunately destroyed by the impact,”ExpMars Flight Director Michel Denis told a Leading English Daily.
It was the second European attempt to land a craft on Mars.Earlier a mission was failed by the British landing craft Beagle 2 in 2003.
The US space agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took low- resolution pictures that shows a bright spot that ESA believes is the 12- meter parachute that Schiaparelli used to slow down
