ExoMars European-Russian probe lifts off to search for life on the red planet

The first of two ExoMars joint European/Russian probes lifted off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on Monday morning. Later, signals from the spacecraft, received at the European Space Agency’s (ESA) control centre in Darmstadt, confirmed the launch was successful, the spacecraft’s solar wings had unfolded and the craft is on its way to Mars.

“It’s been a long journey getting the first ExoMars mission to the launch pad, but thanks to the hard work and dedication of our international teams, a new era of Mars exploration is now within our reach,” said Johann-Dietrich Woerner, ESA's Director General.

Igor Komarov, General Director of the Roscosmos State Space Corporation. “Only the process of collaboration produces the best technical solutions for great research results. Roscosmos and ESA are confident of the mission's success.”

The partners are looking forward to the world-class science data that the mission will deliver, said Alvaro Giménez, ESA's Director of Science. “It is also significant in paving the way for the second ExoMars mission, which will move our expertise from in-orbit observations to surface and subsurface exploration of Mars,” Giménez said.

The two parts of the craft, the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Schiaparelli will travel to Mars together before separating on 16 October at a distance of 900,000 km from the planet.

Then, on 19 October, Schiaparelli will enter the martian atmosphere, descending to the surface in just under six minutes.

Schiaparelli will demonstrate key entry, descent and landing technologies for future missions, and will conduct a number of environmental studies during its short mission on the surface.

These will include obtaining the first measurements of electric fields on the surface of Mars. Combined with measurements of the concentration of atmospheric dust, this will provide new insights into the role of electric forces on dust lifting – the trigger for dust storms.

Meanwhile, on the same day, TGO will enter an elliptical four-day orbit around Mars, taking it from about 300 km at its nearest to around 96,000 km at its furthest point.

After a year of complex and gradual braking, during which the spacecraft will use the planet's atmosphere to lower its orbit slowly to a circular 400 km, its scientific mission of analysing rare gases in the atmosphere will begin.

Of particular interest is methane, which on earth points to active geological or biological processes.

One of the mission’s key goals is to follow up on the methane detection made by ESA's Mars Express in 2004 to understand the processes at play in its generation and destruction, with an improved accuracy of three orders of magnitude over previous measurements.

TGO will also image features on the surface that may be related to trace-gas sources such as volcanoes. In addition, it will be able to detect buried water-ice deposits, which, along with locations identified as sources of the trace gases, could influence the choice of landing sites of future missions.

The orbiter will also act as a data relay for the second ExoMars mission, comprising a rover and stationary surface science platform, which is scheduled for launch in May 2018, arriving in early 2019.