To land on the right foot on the Red Planet, European engineers have been dropping a skeleton of the four-legged ExoMars descent module at various speeds and heights on simulated martian surfaces.

Watch a quick sequence of some of the drops from different angles. For over a month, Thales Alenia Space and Airbus teams ran dozens of vertical drops using a full-scale model of the landing platform at the ALTEC facilities in Turin, Italy. 

This first series of tests involved dropping the model onto both hard and soft surfaces, the latter filled with powdery, Mars-like soil.  The team changed the speed and height of the falls by a few centimetres. 

During the test campaign, the four legs replicated the structure and dimensions of those that will fly to Mars. The lightweight, deployable legs are interconnected and equipped with shock absorbers to withstand the impact.

Another goal of the campaign was to verify the performance of the touchdown sensors. A system installed in all four legs detects when the spacecraft approaches the surface and triggers the shutdown of the descent engines after a soft landing.  

The landing legs are crucial gear for the safe touchdown of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission in 2030, alongside parachutes and engines that will slow the spacecraft’s descent onto Mars. 

While Thales Alenia Space is the industrial lead of the mission, Airbus provides the landing platform and ALTEC offers technical support.