ESA Lander's Signal Cut Out Just Before It Was Supposed To Land on Mars (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader shares an ArsTechnica report: On Wednesday, the European Space Agency sought to become the second entity to successfully land a spacecraft on Mars with its Schiaparelli lander. And everything seemed to be going swimmingly right up until the point that Schiaparelli was to touch down. The European scientists had been tracking the descent of Schiaparelli through an array of radio telescopes near Pune, India and were able to record the moment when the vehicle exited a plasma blackout. The scientists also received a signal that indicated parachute deployment. But during the critical final moments, when nine hydrazine-powered thrusters were supposed to fire to arrest Schiaparelli's descent, the signal disappeared. At that point, the European Space Agency's webcast went silent for several minutes before one of the flight directors could be heard to say, "We expected the signal to continue, but clearly it did not. We don't want to jump to conclusions."

Comments

Re:Signal Aquired

[CajunArson]

That's the orbiter.

The lander is what is in question, and there's been no sign that it has been successfully acquired by the orbiter or anybody else.

Re:Really?

[fustakrakich]

Even in the 60's the moon landings were done by computer. Could a live pilot have executed no, not with the equipment they sent, the fuel use and tolerances for error were far to small.

I believe on Apollo 11 a human had to take over on the landing.