The largest parachute ever sent to Mars, successfully completed its first high-altitude test, a critical stage to ensure the launch of the EXOMARS mission in 2022. Both parachutes of the first and second steps successfully passed tests this year.
The two stages of high-altitude tests took place in Oregon on November 21 and December 3, within the framework of the current tests of parachutes for the safe delivery of the Marshode “Rosalind Franklin” and the “Cossack” landing platform on the surface of Mars in June 2023. The main focus in the last test campaign was concentrated on a dialing parachute with a diameter of 35 m – this is the largest parachute from ever used on Mars. The main parachute was made by the European company ARESCOSMO, a spare – American company Airborne Systems.
Both parachutes were well revealed and fulfilled their task, “says Thierry Blancaert, head of the EXOMARS program of the European Space Agency. – We took over the lessons of all previous tests as much as possible, and this double success that followed the staff deployment of the first stage parachutes at the beginning of this The year, let us say that we are really on the way to launch. We have demonstrated that we have two parachutes for flight to Mars, “he adds.
Specialists will continue to test for checking the reliability of the final selection of parachutes, and in 2022 it is possible to carry out higher parachutes of parachutes of the first and second steps. It is expected that the first stage parachute from AIRBORNE Systems and the second stage parachute from ARESCOSMO will be delivered to Mars depending on the test results in March 2022.
The launch of the Joint Mission of Roskosmos and ESA “EKZOMARS” is scheduled for September 2022. After an almost nine-month interplanetary flight, the descent apparatus consisting of a rover and platform will enter the Martian atmosphere at a speed of 21,000 km per hour. For braking, a thermal screen will be used, two main parachute – each with its exhaust parachute, as well as the braking reactive installation, launched 30 seconds before landing. The main parachute of the first stage with a diameter of 15 m will open on a supersonic velocity, the main parachute of the second stage with a diameter of 35 M will open at the subsonic speed.
EXOMARS Parachute Testing and Testing There were a priority task after a series of unsuccessful shifting tests in 2019 and 2020. The first successful high-altitude tests took place in June 2021, when the first main parachute of the production of Airborne Systems revealed without comments.