Trace Gas Orbiter

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is a collaborative project between the European Space Agency and the Russian Roscosmos agency that sent an atmospheric research orbiter and the Schiaparelli demonstration lander to Mars in 2016 as part of the European-led ExoMars programme. A key goal is to gain a better understanding of methane and other trace gases present in the Martian atmosphere that could be evidence for possible biological activity.
The Trace Gas Orbiter delivered the Schiaparelli lander on 16 October 2016, which crashed on the surface due to a premature release of the parachute. TGO has been orbiting Mars since October 2016 and performing science observations of the planet since April 2018.
The ExoMars programme will continue with the Rosalind Franklin rover in 2028, which will search for biomolecules and biosignatures; the TGO will operate as the communication link for the lander and rover and provide communication for other Mars surface probes with Earth.

Spacecraft

Instruments

Like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Trace Gas Orbiter is a hybrid science and telecom orbiter. Its scientific payload mass is about and consists of:

The Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery has two infrared and one ultraviolet spectrometer channels. Developed by Belgium.
The Atmospheric Chemistry Suite has three infrared spectrometer channels. Developed by Russia.
The Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System is a high-resolution,, colour stereo camera for building accurate digital elevation models of the Martian surface. It will also be an important tool for characterising candidate landing site locations for future missions. Developed by Switzerland.
The Fine-Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector is a neutron detector that can provide information on the presence of hydrogen, in the form of water or hydrated minerals, in the top of the Martian surface. Developed by Russia.

NOMAD and ACS are providing the most extensive spectral coverage of Martian atmospheric processes so far. Twice per orbit, at local sunrise and sunset, they are able to observe the Sun as it shines through the atmosphere. Detection of atmospheric trace species at the parts-per-billion level are possible.

Science goals

The FREND instrument is mapping hydrogen levels to a maximum depth of beneath the Martian surface. Locations where hydrogen is found may indicate water-ice deposits, which could be useful for future crewed missions.
Particularly, the mission is characterising spatial, temporal variation, and localisation of sources for a broad list of atmospheric trace gases. If methane is found in the presence of propane or ethane, that would be a strong indication that biological processes are involved. However, if methane is found in the presence of gases such as sulfur dioxide, that would be an indication that the methane is a byproduct of geological processes.

Detection

The nature of the methane source requires measurements of a suite of trace gases in order to characterise potential biochemical and geochemical processes at work. The orbiter has very high sensitivity to the following molecules and their isotopomers: water, hydroperoxyl, nitrogen dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, acetylene, ethylene, ethane, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen sulfide, carbonyl sulfide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen chloride, carbon monoxide and ozone. Detection sensitivities are at levels of 100 parts per trillion, improved to 10 parts per trillion or better by averaging spectra which could be taken at several spectra per second.

Characterisation

Spatial and temporal variability: latitude–longitude coverage multiple times in a Mars year to determine regional sources and seasonal variations
Correlation of concentration observations with environmental parameters of temperature, dust and ice aerosols
Localisation
Mapping of multiple tracers with different photochemical lifetimes and correlations helps constrain model simulations and points to source/sink regions
To achieve the spatial resolution required to localise sources might require tracing molecules at parts-per-billion concentrations
Relay telecommunications

Due to the challenges of entry, descent and landing, Mars landers are highly constrained in mass, volume and power. For landed missions, this places severe constraints on antenna size and transmission power, which in turn greatly reduce direct-to-Earth communication capability in comparison to orbital spacecraft. As an example, the capability downlinks on Spirit and Opportunity rovers had only the capability of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter downlink.
Relay communication addresses this problem by allowing Mars surface spacecraft to communicate using higher data rates over short-range links to nearby Mars orbiters, while the orbiter takes on the task of communicating over the long-distance link back to Earth. This relay strategy offers a variety of key benefits to Mars landers: increased data return volume, reduced energy requirements, reduced communications system mass, increased communications opportunities, robust critical event communications and in situ navigation aid.
NASA provided an Electra telecommunications relay and navigation instrument to assure communications between probes and rovers on the surface of Mars and controllers on Earth.
The TGO will provide the Rosalind Franklin rover with telecommunications relay; it will also serve as a relay satellite for future lander missions.

Project history

Investigations with space and Earth-based observatories have demonstrated the presence of a small amount of methane on the atmosphere of Mars that seems to vary with location and time. This may indicate the presence of microbial life on Mars, or a geochemical process such as volcanism or hydrothermal activity.
The challenge to discern the source of methane in the atmosphere of Mars prompted the independent planning by ESA and NASA of one orbiter each that would carry instruments in order to determine if its formation is of biological or geological origin, as well as its decomposition products such as formaldehyde and methanol.

Origins

ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter was born out of the nexus of ESA's Aurora programme ExoMars flagship and NASA's 2013 and 2016 Mars Science Orbiter concepts. It became a flexible collaborative proposal within NASA and ESA to send a new orbiter-carrier to Mars in 2016 as part of the European-led ExoMars mission. On the ExoMars side, ESA authorised about half a billion Euros in 2005 for a rover and mini-station; eventually this evolved into being delivered by an orbiter rather than a cruise stage.

Attempted collaboration with NASA

's Mars Science Orbiter was originally envisioned in 2008 as an all-NASA endeavour aiming for a late 2013 launch. NASA and ESA officials agreed to pool resources and technical expertise and collaborate to launch only one orbiter. The agreement, called the Mars Exploration Joint Initiative, was signed in July 2009 and proposed to use an Atlas rocket launcher instead of a Soyuz rocket, which significantly altered the technical and financial setting of the European ExoMars mission.
Since the rover was originally planned to be launched along with the TGO, a prospective agreement would require that the rover lose enough weight to fit aboard the Atlas launch vehicle with NASA's orbiter. Instead of reducing the rover's mass, it was nearly doubled when the mission was combined with other projects to a multi-spacecraft programme divided over two Atlas V launches: the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter was merged into the project, carrying a meteorological lander planned for launch in 2016. The European orbiter would carry several instruments originally meant for NASA's MSO, so NASA scaled down the objectives and focused on atmospheric trace gases detection instruments for their incorporation in ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.
Under the FY2013 budget President Barack Obama released on 13 February 2012, NASA terminated its participation in ExoMars due to budgetary cuts in order to pay for the cost overruns of the James Webb Space Telescope. With NASA's funding for this project cancelled, most of ExoMars's plans had to be restructured.

Collaboration with Russia

On 15 March 2012, the ESA's ruling council announced it would press ahead with its ExoMars program in partnership with the Russian space agency Roscosmos, which planned to contribute two heavy-lift Proton launch vehicles and an additional entry, descent and landing system to the 2020 rover mission.
Under the collaboration proposal with Roscosmos, the ExoMars mission was split into two parts: the orbiter/lander mission in March 2016 that includes the TGO and a diameter stationary lander built by ESA named Schiaparelli, and the Rosalind Franklin rover mission in 2020. Both missions were expected to use a Proton-M rocket. The Rosalind Franklin rover mission was later postponed and in 2022, after Russian invasion of Ukraine, ESA terminated its cooperation on the project with Russia.

Mission timeline

Launch

The Trace Gas Orbiter and descent module Schiaparelli completed testing and were integrated to a Proton rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in mid-January 2016. The launch occurred at 09:31 UTC on 14 March 2016. Four rocket burns occurred in the following 10 hours before the descent module and orbiter were released. A signal from the spacecraft was received at 21:29 UTC that day, confirming that the launch was successful and the spacecraft were functioning properly.
Shortly after separation from the probes, a Brazilian ground telescope recorded small objects in the vicinity of the Briz-M upper booster stage, suggesting that the Briz-M stage exploded a few kilometres away, without damaging the orbiter or lander. Briefing reporters in Moscow, the head of Roscosmos denied any anomaly and made all launch data available for inspection.