My sister's pretty heavily involved in the ExoMars missions. She works with the team who designed and built the NOMAD spectrometer which is aboard this probe. She'll be using the images/3D data from the Trace Gas Orbiter in her research over the next 2 years. She's also working as part of the 2020 ExoMars rover mission having already been involved with the landing site planning. I think she's also flying out to Utah pretty soon to learn how to drive the rover. Yeah, she's clever and has a really cool job...
Tomorrow's landing is a 'proof of concept' that ESA can safely land something on Mars. The interesting stuff will happen in 2020.
It's safe to say she's pretty nervous about tomorrow because if it doesn't go well, the 2020 mission could be pushed back. Fingers crossed it goes ok!
As for space stuff, I've always had a keen interest and I'm currently working on a spare-time project which should hopefully appeal to anyone who has any sort of interest in the night sky which I hope to launch at some point next year:
http://obsrv.space
Here's the real reason for the importance of tomorrow's landing:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/...s-mars-pr/
Telegraph Wrote:The little probe has a short battery life, so will only operate for a few days. The main point of the mission is simply to see if it can be brought down safely, with all its instruments intact.
Whoa, that is pretty cool, Pete! When is she gonna land on mars then
It was meant to touch down around 15 minutes ago but still no official word on whether it has or not. We won't find out officially until later today.
Well, they certainly dun goofed that one.
![[Image: Z1YGeGM.png]](http://i.imgur.com/Z1YGeGM.png)