Spacecraft Schiaparelli landing on Mars today

This video says about itself:

5 October 2016

Visualisation of the ExoMars Schiaparelli module entering and descending through the martian atmosphere to land on Mars.

Schiaparelli will enter the atmosphere at about 21 000 km/h and in less than six minutes it will use a heatshield, a parachute and thrusters to slow its descent before touching down in the Meridiani Planum region close to the equator, absorbing the final contact with a crushable structure.

The entire process will take less than six minutes: the animation has been sped up.

Schiaparelli is set to separate from the Trace Gas Orbiter on 16 October, after a seven-month cruise together through space, and will enter the atmosphere on 19 October at 14:42 GMT.

For an overview of the key timings and altitudes corresponding to the events portrayed in this animation see the Schiaparelli descent sequence graphic, see here.

Both Schiaparelli and the Mars scenery in this animation were computer generated.

More about ExoMars: here.

From Science News:

ExoMars mission set to arrive at Red Planet on October 19

Lander will touch down on Mars and a spacecraft will go into orbit around planet

by Christopher Crockett

5:30pm, October 18, 2016

Mars is about to get another visitor. The European Space Agency’s ExoMars mission arrives at the Red Planet on October 19. A spacecraft known as the Trace Gas Orbiter will go into orbit around Mars while a lander named Schiaparelli will touch down on the surface.

ESA will live stream the landing starting at 9 a.m. EDT on October 19.

The arrival ends a roughly seven-month journey. Schiaparelli, which separated from the orbiter on October 16, is expected to enter the Martian atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. and land in a plain dubbed Meridiani Planum about six minutes later. Parachutes will ease its entry and rockets will slow the lander down until it is about two meters from the ground, at which point it will drop the rest of the way, cushioned by a collapsible structure.

Schiaparelli will test technology needed for a future European Mars rover. The lander doesn’t have a long-term power source, so it will last for only a few Martian days. But it is carrying a few scientific instruments, such as a camera and weather sensors.

The orbiter will stick around to study trace gases such as methane in the Martian atmosphere. It will eventually become a communication hub between Earth and another European Mars rover expected to arrive in 2021.

From the ExoMars FAQ page:

The ExoMars programme is a cooperation between ESA and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos. Roscosmos is providing the Proton rockets to launch both missions to Mars, along with contributions to the scientific payload. On the 2016 mission, two of the four science instrument packages on the TGO are European-led and two are Russian-led, while the Schiaparelli package is European-led. The 2020 mission comprises a European-led rover and a Russian-led surface science platform. NASA also contributes some equipment to both missions. …

Participating countries outside Europe are Russia, the United States, Canada, and Israel.

The Schiaparelli Mars lander, missing in action since its October 19 descent, dinged the surface of the Red Planet. A black spot framed by dark rays of debris mark the lander’s final resting place, the European Space Agency reports online October 27. Its parachute, still attached to the rear heat shield, lies about 1.4 kilometers to the south, new images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show. The front heat shield, ejected about four minutes into the descent, sits roughly 1.4 kilometers to the east of the impact site: here.