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Some landers failed to reach Mars and crash land. Check the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars
He means that whether it crashes or not, it's a landing. However there are projects that completely miss their target and just float in space, so even then it's not 100%.
“There’s too much atmosphere on Mars to land heavy vehicles like we do on the moon, using propulsive technology completely,” said Manning, “and there’s too little atmosphere to land like we do on Earth. So, it’s in this ugly, grey zone.” [1]
The recent success of Curiosity, Spirit and Opportunity must not shadow the fact that most Mars missions have failed.
[0] "Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer
[1] http://www.universetoday.com/7024/the-mars-landing-approach-...
> Estimates are that Schiaparelli dropped from a height of between 2 and 4 kilometres, therefore impacting at a considerable speed, greater than 300 km/h. Ouch. It will be interesting to read the results of the investigation as to why the landing thrusters turned off prematurely.
> Estimates are that Schiaparelli dropped from a height of between 2 and 4 kilometres, therefore impacting at a considerable speed, greater than 300 km/h. Ouch. It will be interesting to read the results of the investigation as to why the landing thrusters turned off prematurely.
Yes, it seems they made quite a dent on Mars I'm not so sure that this should be interpreted as "thrusters turning off prematurely" rather, it getting to the point of shut-off sooner (and faster) OR it stopped because they hit the ground
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Mmmm... not so sure, the Huygens probe was a high visibility ESA mission[0] and worked fine. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens_(spacecraft)
Well, except for one of the two data channels being lost, and a design that had a major flaw that was overcome only with heroic engineering effort (and a major mission redesign). Both of these are discussed in the wikipedia page.
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I'm waiting for the day where someone can tell their rover to drive / fly over and find out what the heck happened.
We have proven designs for Mars rovers, and a proven delivery system. The R&D has been done, the infrastructure is in place - why don't we send some more? We should be able to make incremental updates and constantly improve the rovers capabilities.
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Yes, it seems they made quite a dent on Mars I'm not so sure that this should be interpreted as "thrusters turning off prematurely" rather, it getting to the point of shut-off sooner (and faster) OR it stopped because they hit the ground
I read in some of the reports (can't remember if official ESA, news, or twitter) that they were turned on for just 3 seconds (instead of the inteded ~50), plus the parachute was cut off earlier too. So, as this report from ESA says, it fell from at least a 1000 times higher than intended (the cut off altitude was 2m or so).
Once again, billions of euros are put into use for what is essentially scientific curiosity instead of trying to solve the very real problems Europe is facing. I love astronomy and space exploration but the amounts of money wasted into it rather than other problems with a high priority is staggering.
Sadly you really don't get that many attempts...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm waiting for the day where someone can tell their rover to drive / fly over and find out what the heck happened.
Opportunity is not so far (it's actually inside a crater nearby I think), but it'd take months to get to place, and there may not be enough scientific value in doing so just to see the charred remains of Schiaparelli. But who knows, it's so over it's expected mission life that maybe someone goes "f * it, let's go take a look".
Depending on how hard it cratered, and how soon Opportunity could get there, it could be the most important thing for Opportunity to do.