15 thoughts on “Schiapperalli”

1. I predict the Europeans will be buying red dragons.

   1. Perhaps. Kind of surprised the Russians actually managed to launch that probe to Mars in the first place. They’ve usually had poor luck at launches to Mars.
      As for ESA’s lander… That’s what you get when you do missions so infrequently.

2. One American satellite even called out to Schiaparelli to try to get it to respond.

   Such a strange thing.

   American Satellite: Hello Shiaparurelli are you there? Hellloooo. Shiapaparellie why don’t you answer? Schi Schi Schi parelliehoo ho ho? Schiap out of it! You need any help down there bud? C’mon just talk to me. I’m sorry I made fun of your name. No? Fine be that way. Schia wouldn’t want to be ya.

   Bad jokes aside, one thing the recent past has shown us, if the lander is in anyway functional, they will find a way to make whatever use of it they can.

   1. Well, they’ve got a limited window of opportunity to do something because the lander doesn’t have solar panels. They figure the Beagle II didn’t work because its solar panels didn’t all unfold, so this one doesn’t have solar panels at all, just batteries.

      This leads me to believe that the lander has succeeded beyond ESA’s expectations. They can use this failure to justify more pork.

3. So is SpaceX next in line to try to break NASA’s monopoly on successful Mars landings? I will be happily amazed if they manage it their first try.

   1. Red Dragon will be a radical new landing profile with very little fuel margin and no real time telemetry. That’s rocket science!

      But, following landings will be a proven design on a regular schedule forever changing the nature of those expeditions.

4. Is that about the altitude where the landing rockets were to ignite? If so… loss of control or catastrophic engine failure would be possible scenarios.

   1. Yes, that seems most likely.

   2. I also ran across a comment that implied the chute/landing thrusters were triggered too early, possibly the result of a bogus radar altitude, in which case it would run out of landing fuel while still at altitude.

      The only way they’d already know that happened was if they received telemetry during the final landing phase.

5. “Mars is harder.”

   Esp. when you whack into it at terminal velocity!

6. That ESA live coverage during landing was positively painful to watch, though. Maybe we can have an exchange program and loan ESA a couple of the JPL people who understand media. The woman who ran the later presser was much, much better.

   I am left wondering how much of the PR problem is that they’re really clueless about media, and how much is almost paranoid secrecy of the teams. I’m sure internationl politics is mixed in there somehow.

7. Maybe it got swallowed up in a canal? (Bah-doom boom!)

   It was doing OK until the Principal Investigator replied “wait and see” on whether the science team with “abide by the results of the received data” (Swish!)

   The authorities in Ecuador turned off its data feed because the probe was trying to influence the opinions of scientists in the U.S. (Rap!)

   1. Maybe as extra letter added to Schiaperalli weighted it down? (Bah-dap!)

   2. Darmstadt Control : Hey, wait. I’m getting a no-go signal. Now I’m losing the Schiaparelli. Hey, Pune, you getting it?

      Pune Control : No, I lost contact. There’s a lot of dust blowing up there.

      Darmstadt Control : Now I’ve lost the orbiter. We got problems.

      Pune Control : All contact lost, Darmstadt. Maybe the antenna’s…

      Darmstadt Control : What’s that flare? See it? A green flare, coming from Mars, kind of a green mist behind it. It’s getting closer. You see it, Pune? Come in, Pune! Paris, come in! What’s going on? Tracking station 43, New Norcia , come in New Norcia! Tracking station 63, can you hear me, Cebreros? Can anybody hear me? Come in, come in…

      ULLA!

8. The Martian Planetary Defense system appears to still have a pretty good success rate.

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