|
The search for life on Mars may take a giant leap on Wednesday when a space lander is due to touch down on the red planet in Europe's first attempt to land a craft there since the Beagle 2's "heroic failure" more than a decade ago. The disc-shaped 577-kg (1,272 lb) Schiaparelli lander, which will test technologies for a rover due to follow in 2020, is expected to enter Mars's atmosphere at a speed of nearly 21,000 km (13,049 miles) per hour at 1442 GMT. It will use a parachute and thrusters to slow down before touching down on the planet's surface only six minutes later. The lander is named for Giovanni Schiaparelli, the Italian astronomer who in 1877 began mapping the topography of Mars, extending study of what are now known as the planet's canals, a mistranslation of the Italian word canali, or channels. Schiaparelli is part of the European-Russian ExoMars program, which will search for signs of past and present life on Mars and represents only the second European attempt to land a craft on the red planet, after Britain's Beagle 2 was ejected from the Mars Express spacecraft in 2003 but never made contact after failing to deploy its solar panels upon landing. The second part of the ExoMars mission, delayed to 2020 from 2018, will deliver a European rover to the surface of Mars. It will be the first with the ability to both move across the planet's surface and drill into the ground to collect and analyze samples. | 
