A month ago, the European Space Agency planned to plant the Schiaparelli lander on the surface of Mars. When he entered the atmosphere at a speed of 1,700 kilometers per hour, he opened the parachute and began to prepare for braking and landing, for which jet engines were responsible. As planned by the engineers, they had to braking for about a minute, but instead they worked for only a couple of seconds, which led to a crash - the Schiaparelli fell from a height of about four kilometers at a speed of 300 kilometers per hour. Engineers made various assumptions regarding the crash that occurred. At first, the engines themselves considered the cause, then the module’s landing system and the altimeter were suspected of failure, but, according to the latest data, as was previously supposed, the engines shut down due to a failure in the measuring inertia unit program, which transmitted incorrect data to the central computer .
As a result of the error, the module incorrectly determined the height, considering that it had already flown to the surface of the planet, and therefore turned off the engines. This version of the crash is confirmed by computer simulations of the unsuccessful landing of the Schiaparelli. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the investigation is very active, and this version can not be called final - too much to consider the details and nuances. A detailed study of errors and shortcomings associated not only with the hardware, but also with the software stuffing of future devices is also required in order to prevent a repetition of similar situations in the future. In 2020, ESA plans to send a rover to the Red Planet. Experts are planning to compile a full report by the new 2017.
The article is based on materials .
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