Displaying items by tag: ExoMars

The High Altitude Drop Test - Balloon Flight Services Program (HADT-BFS) is a project setup to test the parachutes of the future ExoMars program. This project is performed by the Romanian company ARCAS. 

The ExoMars program, consisting of two missions, will be pursued as part of a broad cooperation with the Russian Space Agency ROSCOSMOS. Two missions are foreseen within the ExoMars program for the 2016 and 2018 launch opportunities to Mars.

In order to test the ExoMars concept, ESA will design and build a spacecraft composite named ESA EDL Demonstrator Module. The EDL demonstrator will test the technology of the European Space Agency for landing on the Mars planet surface and will carry out several scientific experiments.

ARCA's role and HADT-BFS objective is testing the atmospheric deceleration parachutes of the EDL module in conditions similar to the ones in the Martian atmosphere. The parameters to be analysed will be parachute deployment speed, parachute stability, the drag coefficient and the overall system stability.

ExoMars (Exobiology on Mars) is a planned Mars mission to search for possible biosignatures of Martian life, past or present. This astrobiological mission is currently (September 2012) under development by the European Space Agency (ESA) with likely collaboration by the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos).

The program includes several spacecraft elements to be sent to Mars on two launches. An orbiter and a stationary lander is planned for 2016, and a Russian lander to deliver the rover is planned for 2018.