Aerobraking progress as of 22 March:
To date, periapsis passage speed reduced by 33 cm/sec
Still to go: 99,967 cm/sec
There’s news from the ExoMars/TGO mission control team at ESOC following the first ten days of the ‘walk-in’ to aerobraking, and it’s good; or, to paraphrase the ever-cautious and risk averse engineers who fly around Mars: so far, so good! #hang10
So far, aerobraking is proceeding just as planned and we are very happy with the performance of the spacecraft and its progress through the Martian atmosphere,” says Deputy Spacecraft Operations Manager Silvia Sangiorgi.
To recap: Following months of extremely detailed planning by the mission control team at ESOC, the science team at ESAC, the ExoMars project team at ESTEC and industry, aerobraking began on 15 March with a thruster burn – one of seven that will begin lowering TGO’s altitude at periapsis (height of closest approach above the surface) step-wise to just 113 km.
Already, it is ‘feeling’ the wispy faint drag due to the atmosphere of Mars, and this is what the mission controllers want… [More at link]