But people will learn from this, and the next one will be better.

First, it is really, really difficult to land safely on Mars. The atmosphere is very, very thin, so parachutes are both obligatory and nearly useless. And Mars' mass is too large to go without a parachute. You are basically screwn landing on Mars, which is why so many spacecraft have crashed attempting it. Plus, it helps if the lander knows the difference between metric and English units.

Second, by the time the lander is to set down, it is minutes in the past, even when Mars is close. So there is no real-time control. Google "seven minutes of terror" for an exemplar of the Curiosity rover's descent, all done with the JPL controllers absolutely blind and seven minutes behind, longer than Curiosity's descent!

Hopefully, ESO will get it together for their big launch to Mars.

It was only going to have power for a couple of days on the surface and would have taken weather measurements. That probe was designed to test their entry method. I'm hoping the retrieved data will be enough for them to have a good idea about what happened.

Sad to read this. Just watched a show last night on Science channels about this mission. 😕

Going to Mars or anywhere in space is a very difficult endeavor. Hopefully ESA will be able to nail down the reason for this loss and learn from it and go forward with another mission. 🚀🛰🚀

Sad for the ESA, but they'll get em next time.

Source: The Guardian

ESA's Schiaparelli Mars lander exploded on impact, Nasa images suggest

Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
Friday 21 October 2016 18.50 BST

The landing site of a European spacecraft that was supposed to make a historic touchdown on Mars this week has been identified in images that suggest the probe suffered a violent collision at the surface.

Images from Nasa Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show a large “fuzzy dark patch” that scientists think was caused by huge plumes of dust thrown up in a high-speed crash - and may even indicate the probe exploded on impact. Theprobe is believed to have gone down with full fuel tanks far faster than planned because its retrorockets, intended to slow it down, fired for only a few seconds before switching off prematurely.

A second, brighter, surface feature is thought to be the 12-metre-wide parachute, which the Schiaparelli lander jettisoned during descent.

The latest observations confirm what most European Space Agency (ESA) scientists were already resigned to: that what was supposed to be a historic first scientific mission on Mars for Europe had been scuppered at the last moment. The rapid location of the craft is likely to come as a relief, however, and will help with the forensic analysis that is already underway.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/21/european-schiaparelli-mars-lander-exploded-on-impact-nasa-images-suggest

Here's the after shot, from the ESA website:



Comparison view (larger images linked from http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter_views_Schiaparelli_landing_site )

alternating between the "before" and "after" image.