An artist’s depiction of the as-yet-unnamed ExoMars rover on Mars.

ESA/ATG medialab

The European Space Agency plans to send a fresh rover to Mars in 2020 as part of its ongoing ExoMars mission. That rover needs a snappy new name, and the UK Space Agency, ESA and Airbus are turning to the public for suggestions.

We all know what happens when you ask the public to name something. You end up with Boaty McBoatface. But the ExoMars team has a plan to counteract that: The names won’t be up for public vote, and a judging panel will select the final moniker. The winner will get a chance to tour the Airbus facility in the UK where the rover is being built.

People must live in an ESA member state to offer up a name, but you won’t see a list of what’s already been suggested. For that, we have to turn to social media, where space fans are dishing out some ideas, including Marsy McMarsface, Rovey McRoveyface, Rovey McMarsface and Crawly McRockface.

The UK Space Agency will accept naming entries through Oct. 10, 2018. If all goes as planned, the rover will land on Mars in March 2021 on a mission to look for signs of ancient life on the dusty planet.

Artist impression of the Schiaparelli module with parachute deployed. Copyright ESA/ATG medialab

The inquiry into the crash-landing of the ExoMars Schiaparelli module has concluded that conflicting information in the onboard computer caused the descent sequence to end prematurely.

The Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing demonstrator module separated from its mothership, the Trace Gas Orbiter, as planned on 16 October last year, and coasted towards Mars for three days.

Much of the six-minute descent on 19 October went as expected: the module entered the atmosphere correctly, with the heatshield protecting it at supersonic speeds. Sensors on the front and back shields collected useful scientific and engineering data on the atmosphere and heatshield.

Artist’s impression of the ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter at Mars.

After the smooth arrival of ESA’s latest Mars orbiter, mission controllers are now preparing it for the ultimate challenge: dipping into the Red Planet’s atmosphere to reach its final orbit.

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is on a multiyear mission to understand the tiny amounts of methane and other gases in Mars’ atmosphere that could be evidence for possible biological or geological activity.

Following its long journey from Earth, the orbiter fired its main engine on 19 October to brake sufficiently for capture by the planet’s gravity.

It entered a highly elliptical orbit where its altitude varies between about 250 km and 98 000 km, with each circuit taking about four Earth days.

Ultimately, however, the science goals and its role as a data relay for surface rovers mean the craft must lower itself into a near-circular orbit at just 400 km altitude, with each orbit taking about two hours.

ExoMars created its first 3D image of Martian topography from two stereo images captured by the Trace Gas Orbiter. Image: ESA/Roscosmos/ExoMars/CaSSIS/UniBE

In case Schiaparelli’s crash-landing left you thinking the European Space Agency’s ExoMars mission was a bust, rest assured it wasn’t. The mission’s scientific workhorse—its Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO)—is performing beautifully, as evidenced by the first images and splashes of data ESA has now received back from the Red Planet.

In keeping with ExoMars’ goal of discovering signs of life, the TGO’s agenda is to produce a detailed inventory of rare gases in Mars’ lower atmosphere. These include water vapor, nitrogen dioxide, acetylene, and most importantly, methane, which is broken apart by sunlight. If methane is present in Martian air, something—either a biological or geological process—is resupplying it.

The TGO is also equipped with state-of-the-art imaging equipment. If it does sniff something interesting, ESA will take detailed photos of the corresponding spot on the surface, so that a future rover can pay a visit.

Illustration showing the moment the Schiaparelli lander was to jettison its back shell and parachute and ignite its descent engines. A preliminary analysis suggests this stage happened prematurely, likely the result of a software error. (Image: ESA/ATG Medialab)

Photos of a huge circle of churned-up Martian soil leave few doubts: a European Space Agency (ESA) probe that was supposed to test landing technology on Mars crashed into the red planet instead, and may have exploded on impact.

Mars-probe loss is a chance for ESA to learn

The events of 19 October may be painful for ESA scientists to recall, but they will now have to relive them over and over again in computer simulations. The lander, called Schiaparelli, was part of ESA’s ExoMars mission, which is being conducted jointly with the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos. It was a prelude to a planned 2020 mission, when researchers aim to land a much larger scientific station and rover on Mars, which will drill up to 2-metres down to look for signs of ancient life in the planet’s soil. Figuring out Schiaparelli’s faults and rectifying them is a priority, says Jorge Vago, project scientist for ExoMars. “That’s super important. I think it’s on everybody’s mind.”

The European space probe Schiaparelli may have crash landed on Mars after suffering problems releasing its parachute and firing retrorockets to slow its descent, it emerged today.

At a briefing this morning, the European Space Agency (ESA) said there had been technical failings in the final 30 seconds before landing.

Schiaparelli’s touchdown was supposed to prove that the ESA had the capability to land on Mars ahead of the second part of the ExoMars mission to place a rover on the planet in 2020, which will drill into the surface looking for signs of life on the Red Planet.

But there were fears that the problems could impact future funding. European ministers will meet later this year to decide whether to give the green light to the 2020 mission.

Andrea Acoomazzo, ESA Spacecraft Operations Manager, said that everything had gone to plan for the first five and a half minutes of descent but then events ‘diverged from what was expected’ during ejection of the parachute and heat shield.