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Russian specialists develop flight equipment for ExoMars-2020 mission

The first stage of the ExoMars project was launched in 2016

© Marina Lystseva/TASS

MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/. Specialists of the Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems Company have completed the development of flight equipment for electric power supply under the ExoMars-2020 project, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos said in a statement posted on Facebook on Friday.

"The Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems Company has completed the work on making the flight equipment for the international Mars exploration project. The specialists have created an electric power supply automatics and voltage stabilization system and have also made an onboard cable network," the statement says.

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Roscosmos has said that the new equipment will supply the landing module developed for the mission with electric power. The equipment has undergone the required tests and sterilization, the corporation said.

The ExoMars-2020 mission’s spacecraft is designed to deliver the Russian landing platform to Mars for placing the European rover onto the Red Planet’s surface. After disembarking the rover, the platform will begin to work as a longtime autonomous research station for studying the composition and properties of Martian surface and atmosphere. The European rover will house the Pasteur scientific laboratory to study directly the surface and the atmosphere of Mars in the landing area, search for compounds and substances that could testify to the possible existence of life on Mars.

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The Schiaparelli landing demonstrator vehicle was expected to practice maneuvers to enter the Martian atmosphere, descend and land on the Red Planet before the launch of the mission’s second stage but failed to make a soft landing and crashed.

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