ExoMars In Photos: Schiaparelli Probe's Mars Landing Day

EXOMARS 2016 Spacecraft Encapsulated

B. Bethge/ESA

ExoMars 2016 spacecraft composite underwent encapsulation within the launcher fairing at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 2, 2016.

ExoMars Spacecraft Mated to Proton Rocket

KhSC

The ExoMars spacecraft and its Proton rocket, inside a facility at Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome on March 5, 2016.

ExoMars Spacecraft at Baikonur

TAS-I - G.Passarelli

The ExoMars 2016 spacecraft (inside the fairing) and the Breeze-M upper stage of Russia’s Proton rocket are transported to an area at Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome to be integrated with the rest of the Proton launch vehicle. Photo taken on March 5, 2016.

Proton Rocket Raising

Stephane Corvaja/ESA

The Proton rocket that launched the ExoMars 2016 spacecraft to Mars was raised into a vertical position at the launch pad at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on March 11, 2016.

ExoMars 2016 Blasts Off

ESA–Stephane Corvaja, 2016

The first phase of the European-led ExoMars program blasts off on March 14, 2016 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

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Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.