Russia’s Proton rocket carrying
the spacecraft launched into an
overcast sky at the Russian-
operated Baikonur cosmodrome
in the Kazakh steppe at 0931
GMT according to plan. With its suite of high-tech
instruments, the Trace Gas
Orbiter (TGO), is expected to
arrive at the Red Planet in
October after a journey of 496
million kilometres.
Two robotic spacecraft began a
seven-month journey to Mars as
part of a European-Russian
unmanned space mission to sniff
out leads to life on the Red Planet. Russia’s Proton rocket carrying
the spacecraft launched into an
overcast sky at the Russian-
operated Baikonur cosmodrome in
the Kazakh steppe at 0931 GMT
according to plan, the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the
European Space Agency (ESA) said. Roscosmos said the launch had
taken place “successfully”. ExoMars 2016, a collaboration
between ESA and Roscosmos, is the
first part of a two-phase
exploration aiming to answer
questions about the existence of
life on Mars. The ESA has said the aim was to
determine “whether Mars is
‘alive’”. With its suite of high-tech
instruments, the Trace Gas Orbiter
(TGO), is expected to arrive at the
Red Planet in October after a
journey of 496 million kilometres. TGO will photograph the Red Planet
and analyse its air, splitting off
from the Mars lander dubbed
Schiaparelli days before entering
its atmosphere. The second phase, a Mars rover
due for launch in 2018, seems likely
to be delayed over financial
concerns. PURPOSE One key goal is to analyse
methane, a gas which on earth is
created in large part by living
microbes, and traces of which were
observed by previous Mars
missions. “TGO will be like a big nose in
space,” said Jorge Vago, ExoMars
project scientist. Methane, the ESA said, is normally
destroyed by ultraviolet radiation
within a few hundred years, which
implied that in Mars’ case “it
must still be produced today”. TGO will analyse Mars’ methane
in more detail than any previous
mission, said ESA, in order to try to
determine its likely origin. One component of TGO, a neuron
detector called FREND, can help
provide improved mapping of
water distribution on Mars, amid
growing evidence the planet once
had as much if more water than earth. A better understanding of water on
Mars, the fourth planet from the
sun, could aid scientists’
understanding of how the Earth
might cope in conditions of
increased drought. Schiaparelli, in turn, will spend
several days measuring climatic
conditions including seasonal dust
storms on the Red planet while
serving as a test lander ahead of
the rover’s anticipated arrival. The module takes its name from
19th century Italian astronomer
Giovanni Schiaparelli whose
discovery of “canals” on Mars
caused people to believe, for a
while, that there was intelligent life on our neighbouring planet. TOUGH ACTIVITY As for the next phase of ExoMars,
ESA director general Jan Woerner
has mooted a possible two-year
delay, saying in January: “We
need some more money” due to
cost increases. The rover scheduled for 2018 has
been designed to drill up to two
metres (around seven feet) into
the Red Planet in search of organic
matter, a key indicator of life past
or present. ESA said the rover landing
“remains a significant
challenge” however. Although TGO’s main science
mission is scheduled to last until
December 2017, it has enough fuel
to continue operations for years
after, if all goes well. Thomas Reiter, director of human
spaceflight at ESA, said in televised
remarks ahead of the launch he
believed a manned mission to Mars
would take place “maybe in 20
years or 30 years”. Russian-American duo Mikhail
Kornienko and Scott Kelly earlier
this month returned from a year-
long mission at the International
Space Station seen as a vital
precursor to such a mission. The ExoMars mission derives its
name from the scientific term for
the search for life beyond Earth.

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The future is here

humans if left untamed can do d impossible, to me I think wit d rate at wch we re going.... impossible is nothing