Senate Committee: Mr Fraser and Downside Risks

atmosphere: The "Schiaparelli" lander, a trial-run for a Mars rover to follow, was meant to touch down at 1448 GMT, after separating from its mothership, the Trace Gas Orbiter , on Sunday, according to Nine News Australia. But contact with the paddling pool-sized lander was lost during its six-minute descent through the Red Planet thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere."It clear these are not good signs," ESA operations head Paolo Ferri said at ground control in Darmstadt, Germany. "But we need more information" before declaring the operation failed. Europe and Russia celebrated placing a robot explorer into Mars orbit today, but ground controllers faced an anxious night searching for the tiny lander it had despatched to the Red Planet surface. Schiaparelli was Europe first attempt at a Mars landing since the British-built Beagle 2 was lost without trace 13 years ago . An update should be ready by 0800 GMT on Thursday, Ferri said. The TGO and Schiaparelli comprise phase one of the Exo Mars mission through which Europe and Russia seek to join the United States in probing the hostile Martian surface. On the upside, flight operations manager Michel Denis announced that the TGO itself, which is to sniff Mars' atmosphere for gases possibly excreted by molecular life forms, had correctly entered Red Planet orbit."It a good spacecraft in the right place, and we have a mission around Mars," he said. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.