The European Space Agency aims to continue the exploration of Mars – LA NACION (Argentina)

Requested increase to 400 million euros, despite having crashed in the past month, a module spacecraft on the red planet, which was to take the key data

Europe seeks to conquer the elusive Mars. Photo: File

BRUSSELS.- The Agency the European Space (ESA) asked “something more than 400 million euros” (6584 million pesos) to the council of ministers of the agency to continue in 2020 with the second stage of Exomars, the mission of Mars exploration, said today on a conference call the manager David Parker.

These resources will be subject to the approval of the ministers in charge of space activities of the 22 member states of the ESA, the next 1 and 2 December at a meeting to be held in the swiss city of Lucerne.

“we look forward to a positive decision”, esperanzó Parker, who noted that they have learned an excellent lesson about what has happened with the last and rugged exploratory mission to Mars, reported the Spanish agency EFE.

“We have learned what has gone well and what has gone wrong. You got data to the scientific community. It is true that there was some element frustrating, but now we have to plan for 2020 and we are ready to succeed,” he said.

The 19 of October last, the lander, Schiaparelli crashed against the surface of the red planet, where he was to perform scientific measurements.

Yesterday it was learned that the cause of the accident could have been a flaw in the system that was supposed to measure the rotation of the ship, that “occurred shortly after that desplegase parachute” to the scheduled height, 12 kilometres from the ground.

previous mission to the red planet was a failure, they admitted. Photo: File

The saturation caused the device to stop your maximum measurement for a second, “more than expected”, and once processed the information “wrong” was generated to an altitude estimated to be negative -below the level of the ground, which made the parachute and the backshell is desprendiesen prematurely and produce “a sudden activation of the engine brake” as if I had landed, when in reality I was still at an altitude of 3.7 km.

The mission Exomars 2016 was organized together with the agency Russian Roscosmos, an association that is expected to prolong as “it is in very good shape and has been very positive,” said Parker.

although the landing failed the mission for 2016, THIS is the satellite ExoMars Orbiter of Trace Gases (OGT) revolving around Mars, ready to perform observations.