The Schiaparelli Mars lander showed the first signs of a glitch as it released its parachute 1km from the surface and the signal went dead soon afterwards, ESA scientists said on Thursday, leaving them unsure of where the probe is and whether it crash-landed. But speaking at a press conference on Thursday morning, Jan Woerner, ESA’s director general, insisted the operations had been largely successful. The lander going off-radar at the last minute would not put the second phase of ExoMars – a six-wheeled rover due to be launched in 2020 – in jeopardy. While engineers hope to learn from any glitches that befell Schiaparelli, a question mark hangs over the future of the ExoMars rover because of a £300m funding gap at ESA. Named after the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, the European lander was released from the TGO on Sunday afternoon.

Source: The Guardian October 20, 2016 09:18 UTC