Tests Of European-Russian Mars Mission's Parachutes To End Next May - ESA Head

Tests of European-Russian Mars Mission's Parachutes to End Next May - ESA Head

The final tests of the parachute system for the Russian-European Mars landing station ExoMars-2022 are scheduled for May of 2021 in Sweden, Rene Pischel, the head of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Permanent Mission in Russia, told Sputnik on Thursday

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th November, 2020) The final tests of the parachute system for the Russian-European Mars landing station ExoMars-2022 are scheduled for May of 2021 in Sweden, Rene Pischel, the head of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Permanent Mission in Russia, told Sputnik on Thursday.

"We discuss holding high-altitude tests of the parachute system for the ExoMars-2022 landing mission in Sweden in May 2021, depending on the results of high-altitude tests in the United States in November this year," Pischel said.

The parachute system of ExoMars-2022 consists of two main parachutes with diameters of 15 meters and 35 meters (50 feet and 115 feet, respectively), each of which has its own pilot chute. The first high-altitude tests were conducted in May and August of last year in Sweden. The larger parachute experienced technical issues during the August test and ended up collapsing upon landing.

Following this, the ESA asked NASA for help in figuring out the issue and ended up remodeling the parachute bags, which they found to be the cause of the faulty landing. Ground tests of the new model were conducted in the US last November, and high-altitude tests began in March, but were postponed due to the pandemic.

ExoMars-2022 is scheduled to be launched in the period between September 20 and October 1 of 2022 on a Proton-M carrier rocket from Russia's Baikonur space field. The mission itself consists of a European flight module and a Russian landing module, which will include a Russian lander named Kazachok and a European rover named Rosalind Franklin. If the launch window remains unchanged, they are expected to land on Mars on June 10, 2023.

The mission's predecessor ExoMars-2016 was sent to Mars in March 2016.