On this day in space: March 14, 2016: ExoMars orbiter launches to seek signs of life on Red Planet

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On March 14, 2016, the European Space Agency's ExoMars spacecraft launched on a mission to search for life on Mars.

On March 14, 2016, the European Space Agency's ExoMars spacecraft launched on a mission to search for life on Mars.

A Russian Proton-M rocket launches the ExoMars 2016 mission, consisting of the Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli lander, from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on March 14, 2016.

Astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus. (Image credit: ESA–Stephane Corvaja, 2016)

The two spacecraft blasted off together on a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They spent the next seven months cruising to Mars. When they arrived, Schiaparelli separated from the orbiter and began its descent.

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But something went wrong when it came in for a controlled landing. Mission control lost contact with the lander and later found out that it had crashed due to a computer glitch. Despite this setback, the ExoMars mission will live on. The orbiter is still working just fine, and an ExoMars rover is scheduled to join the Trace Gas Orbiter on Mars in 2020.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Hanneke Weitering
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. 

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