Schiaparelli landing site. The landing ellipse of Schiaparelli, the ExoMars Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module on Meridiani Planum, Mars. To the north are smooth, flat plains. To the south and southeast are craters, and channels carved by water flow in Mars' past. Schiaparelli, which was designed to test landing technologies, attempted to land on Mars on 19 October 2016, but contact was lost during the descent. Telemetry data indicates the thrusters switched off prematurely, and the lander fell to the surface from a height of several kilometres. This image is a High Resolution Stereo Camera mosaic compiled from Mars Express data from 2005 and 2010. |