ExoMars '96 Percent' Successful Despite Lander Crash: ESA

The ExoMars 2016 mission gets a solid "A" thus far despite the failure of its Schiaparelli lander to touch down softly on the Red Planet, European Space Agency (ESA) officials said. Schiaparelli stopped communicating with its handlers less than a minute before its planned touchdown Wednesday morning (Oct. 21). While ExoMars team members are still analyzing the lander's data, early indications suggest that Schiaparelli fired its thrusters for an insufficient amount of time toward the end of the descent and slammed into the Martian surface hard — an interpretation bolstered by photos of the apparent crash site taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.