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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.
