European Mars lander released from ExoMars mothership – Spaceflight Now
http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/10/17/european-mars-lander-released-from-exomars-mothership/
A saucer-shaped entry, descent and landing demonstrator separated from Europe’s ExoMars orbiter Sunday,
beginning a three-day approach aiming to become the first European-built craft to set down on the red planet and return data.
Named for Giovanni Schiaparelli, the Italian astronomer who charted the first rudimentary maps of Mars in the 19th century,
the landing probe is heading for a target in Meridiani Planum, an expansive plain near the Martian equator.
Schiaparelli deployed from a pod on its carrier craft, an instrument-laden satellite heading into orbit around Mars,
as scheduled at 1442 GMT (10:42 a.m. EDT) Sunday, and each spacecraft is heading off on separate missions.
Both elements — built by Thales Alenia Space — are part of the European Space Agency’s ExoMars program in partnership with Russia,
which was responsible for launching the mission. The next phase of the ExoMars mission will come in 2020 with the launch of
a European-built rover on another Russian rocket.