ESA Grounds ExoMars

The ExoMars program is a joint effort between European Space Agency(ESA) and Roscosmos.  The mission  includes the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) launched in 2016. The TGO is already both delivering important scientific results of its own and relaying data from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover and InSight lander. It will also relay the data from the ExoMars rover mission once it arrives at Mars.  Unfortunately, the ExoMars Rover is now delayed.

All of the flight hardware needed for the launch of ExoMars has already been integrated in the spacecraft. All thirteen scientific instruments have been equipped in the Kazachok landing platform, and the Rosalind Franklin rover’s  nine instruments recently passed final thermal and vacuum tests in France.

The joint ESA-Roscosmos project team evaluated all the activities needed for a launch and weighted the risks and schedule. The decision was to delay the launch until 2022.  Consideration to the concern that tests necessary to make all components of the spacecraft fit for the Mars adventure need more time to complete.  Several technical issues along with the COVID-19 epidemic have put too much stress on the project to continue.

“We have made a difficult but well-weighed decision to postpone the launch to 2022. It is driven primarily by the need to maximise the robustness of all ExoMars systems as well as force majeure circumstances related to exacerbation of the epidemiological situation in Europe which left our experts practically no possibility to proceed with travels to partner industries. I am confident that the steps that we and our European colleagues are taking to ensure mission success will be justified and will unquestionably bring solely positive results for the mission implementation,” said Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin.

Russia also knows about failure.  Several recent joint missions to Mars have failed.  In 2012, the Phobos-Grunt Mars mission came crashing back to Earth.  The spacecraft engines were supposed to fire shortly after entering orbit and send the craft to the Planet Mars.  Instead, the mission failed, and crashed back to Earth.  Along with the Russian Phobos-Grunt, China’s Yinghuo-1 came crashing back to Earth and was declared a total loss.

ESA’s prior 2016 mission also ran into issues.  The Schiaparelli EDM lander.  Similar issues to the US Mars Polar Lander occurred according to the 2017 EXOMARS 2016 – Schiaparelli Anomaly Inquiry by ESA.

The Schiaparelli lander attempted an automated landing on 19 October 2016, but the signal was lost a short time before the planned landing time.

Schiaparelli transmitted roughly 600 megabytes of telemetry during its landing attempt, and detailed analysis found that its atmospheric entry occurred normally. The lander’s inertial measurement unit, which measures rotation, became saturated for about one second giving the Schiaparelli a false indication of where it was. This set a series of events in place that would doom the spacecraft.

A review of the events resulted in the following conclusions:

•  Insufficient conservative modeling of the parachute dynamics which led to expect much lower dynamics than observed in flight;
•  Inadequate persistence time of the IMU saturation flag and inadequate handling of IMU saturation by the GNC;
• Insufficient approach to FDIR and design robustness;
• Mishap in management of subcontractors and acceptance of hardware, (the persistence of IMU saturation time was not recorded at acceptance and instead believed to be 15 ms).

In short, to make schedule, proper testing was not completed.   Similar issues can and will occur for any complex engineering effort that is not properly funded and planned.  Efforts to maintain project schedule can lead to unintended results and lead to loss of spacecraft.

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