'Life on Mars' lander aims for risky touch down on red planet

The search for life on Mars may take a giant leap on Wednesday when a space lander is due to touch down on the red planet in Europe's first attempt to land a craft there since the Beagle 2's "heroic failure" more than a decade ago.

The disc-shaped 577-kg (1,272 lb) Schiaparelli lander, which will test technologies for a rover due to follow in 2020, is expected to enter Mars's atmosphere at a speed of nearly 21,000 km (13,049 miles) per hour at 1442 GMT.

It will use a parachute and thrusters to slow down before touching down on the planet's surface only six minutes later.

The lander is named for Giovanni Schiaparelli, the Italian astronomer who in 1877 began mapping the topography of Mars, extending study of what are now known as the planet's canals, a mistranslation of the Italian word canali, or channels.

Schiaparelli is part of the European-Russian ExoMars program, which will search for signs of past and present life on Mars and represents only the second European attempt to land a craft on the red planet, after Britain's Beagle 2 was ejected from the Mars Express spacecraft in 2003 but never made contact after failing to deploy its solar panels upon landing.

The second part of the ExoMars mission, delayed to 2020 from 2018, will deliver a European rover to the surface of Mars. It will be the first with the ability to both move across the planet's surface and drill into the ground to collect and analyze samples.

The ExoMars 2016 mission is led by the European Space Agency (ESA), with Russia's Roscosmos supplying the launcher and two of the four scientific instruments on the trace gas orbiter. The prime contractor is Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (TCFP.PA) and Finmeccanica SIFI.MI.

The cost of the ExoMars mission to ESA, including the second part due in 2020, is expected to be about 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion). Russia's contribution comes on top of that.

At the time it was dubbed "a heroic failure".

Landing on Mars, Earth's neighbor some 35 million miles (56 million km) away, is a notoriously difficult task that has bedeviled most Russian efforts and given NASA trouble as well.

A seemingly hostile environment on Mars has not detracted from its allure, with U.S. President Barack Obama recently highlighting his pledge to send people to the planet by the 2030s.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is developing a massive rocket and capsule to transport large numbers of people and cargo to Mars with the ultimate goal of colonizing the planet, with Musk saying he would like to launch the first crew as early as 2024.

LIFE ON MARS

The primary goal of ExoMars is to find out whether life has ever existed on Mars. The spacecraft on which the Schiaparelli lander traveled to Mars, Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), carries an atmospheric probe to study trace gases such as methane around the planet.

Scientists believe that methane, a chemical that on Earth is strongly tied to life, could stem from micro-organisms that either became extinct millions of years ago and left gas frozen below the planet's surface, or that some methane-producing organisms still survive.

译文：

寻找火星上的生命可能需要一个巨大的飞跃周三由于空间探测器时降落在这颗红色星球在欧洲首次尝试土地工艺由于2号的“英勇失败”十多年前。

一个圆盘形的577公斤(1272磅)夏着陆器,将测试技术探测器由于遵循2020年,预计将进入火星大气层的速度每小时近21000公里(13049英里)1442 GMT。

它将使用一个降落伞和推进器减缓地球表面的接触下来之前只有6分钟后。

着陆器的命名是乔凡尼夏1877年意大利天文学家开始映射火星的地形,扩展研究什么是现在被称为地球的运河,意大利单词canali误译或通道。

夏的一部分European-Russian天外火星计划,将搜索过去和现在的火星上存在生命的迹象,只代表第二个欧洲工艺试图降落在这颗红色星球,之后英国的小猎犬2 2003年被逐出火星快车号宇宙飞船,但从未接触失败后部署它的太阳能电池板着陆。

第二个天外火星任务的一部分,从2020年推迟到2020年,将欧洲火星的火星表面。这将是第一个有能力跨越地球表面和深入地收集和分析样本。

天外火星2016任务是由欧洲航天局(ESA)与俄罗斯航天局提供的发射器和两个四个科学仪器在微量气体探测器。泰利斯阿莱尼亚空间主承包商,泰利斯公司的合资公司(TCFP.PA)和Finmeccanica SIFI.MI。

ESA天外火星任务的成本,包括第二部分由于在2020年,预计约为13亿欧元(合14亿美元)。俄罗斯的贡献是最重要的是。

在当时被称为“英勇失败”。

登陆火星,地球的邻居约3500万英里(5600万公里),是一个很困难的任务,一直困扰着俄罗斯的大部分努力,NASA的麻烦。

火星上的一个看似充满敌意的环境没有扰乱其吸引力,与美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)最近强调他承诺给地球人到2030年代。

伊隆麝香SpaceX公司正在开发一个大规模的火箭和飞船运送大量的人员和货物到火星殖民地球的终极目标,麝香说他想早在2024年推出第一个船员。

火星上的生命

天外火星的主要目标是找出火星上是否曾经存在生命。夏探测器前往火星的宇宙飞船,微量气体探测器(TGO),进行大气探测研究跟踪全球甲烷等气体。

科学家认为,甲烷,这种化学物质在地球上生活密切相关,可以来源于微生物,数百万年前灭绝,冷冻的天然气地球的表面,或者一些产甲烷生物仍然生存。