ExoMars parachutes prepared for martian deployment

A stratospheric helium balloon lifted a dummy descent module and launched it above the Arctic Circle at an altitude of almost 30 km, triggering the deployment of two massive parachutes from their doughnut baggage.

“We’re blissful to substantiate that we have now a parachute design that may work on Mars – an formidable system with the biggest parachute ever to be flown exterior Earth,” says Luca Ferracina, ESA’s ExoMars Entry Descent and Touchdown Module system engineer.

This high-altitude drop check marketing campaign came about on the Swedish Area Company’s Esrange Area Middle in Kiruna, northern Sweden, on 7 July.

Tips on how to check a Mars touchdown on Earth

To match the mix of density and pace that the capsule will expertise when diving into the skinny martian environment – about 1% of the density of Earth’s environment at sea stage – the balloon needed to fly very excessive.

The ExoMars parachutes dropped from an altitude of 29 km, or about thrice the altitude the place business plane cruise.

The dummy capsule then went into free-fall for about 20 seconds, reaching nearly the pace of sound, earlier than deploying the parachutes in flip.

“The mixture of velocity and low atmospheric density on this check is precisely the identical as what the parachutes will expertise on Mars. Testing on Earth is a method to achieve confidence and ensure that every one the weather carry out as anticipated,” explains Luca.  

Excessive-altitude drop exams require advanced logistics and strict climate circumstances for flight security. Esrange’s distinctive amenities and lengthy heritage of stratospheric balloon missions for the reason that early Nineteen Seventies make it an acceptable location for the marketing campaign.

Two are higher than one

Touchdown on Mars is a high-risk endeavour. In simply six minutes, the descent module has to decelerate from 21 000 km/h on the prime of the planet’s environment to a comfortable touchdown to maintain its treasured cargo, the Rosalind Franklin rover, match for floor exploration.

Slowing down requires a thermal protect, two major parachutes – every with its personal pilot chute for extraction – and a retro-rocket propulsion system triggered 20 seconds earlier than touching the martian floor.

Many of the supersonic velocity will lower as a result of aerodynamic drag of the capsule. Essentially the most environment friendly method to take away the remaining pace for a protected touchdown is with a mixture of parachutes and retro-rockets.

“Utilizing two parachutes permits us to design a robust, medium-sized parachute to decelerate the probe by way of supersonic speeds after which a a lot bigger, light-weight parachute for the ultimate descent,” explains John Underwood, principal engineer at Vorticity, the UK firm entrusted with parachute design and check evaluation.  

Working in tandem

The primary stage major parachute is 15 m-wide, just like the kind of parachutes designed for touchdown NASA’s Viking Mars spacecraft in 1972. For ExoMars, groups are utilizing a variant designed for the profitable ESA Cassini-Huygens mission to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. This three-stage parachute system still holds the record for the most distant landing from Earth ever attempted. 

The parachute system tested in Sweden was already qualified to fly to Mars in 2021, but was stored when the mission was put to a halt due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.