The European Space Agency have confirmed that the Schiaparelli Mars lander has been lost.
In a press conference this morning the team confirmed that many of the lander’s entry procedures were successful however there appeared to be a problem shortly after the lander’s parachute was detached.
The robot was originally supposed to have landed on Mars at around 3pm yesterday afternoon however radio contact was lost just a minute before the landing.
The hope now is to both sift through the data they have collected and then utilise the array of different satellites in orbit around Mars in the hopes of making visual confirmation of the landing site.
ExoMars Program Manager Don McCoy confirmed that much of the descent data that they had been hoping for was successfully relayed back to the ExoMars probe, so while the landing itself was a mystery, the test has by no means been a failure.
In rather more positive news, the ESA confirmed that the ExoMars probe has successfully been placed in orbit around the Red Planet.
Over the next few years, ExoMars will study Mars’ atmosphere in fine detail, giving scientists all over the world a tantalising glimpse into the planet’s cloud patterns, and atmospheric composition.