A European spacecraft destined to land on Mars detached from its mothership on Sunday (Oct. 16), setting the stage for a daring descent to the Red Planet's surface later this week. The European Space Agency's Mars-bound Schiaparelli module separated from its carrier craft — the Trace Gas Orbiter — at about 10:42 a.m. EDT (1442 GMT) as both spacecraft were in the home stretch of their 308 million-mile trek (496 million kilometers) to Mars. If all goes well, the two probes (which make up the ESA-Russian ExoMars 2016 mission) will arrive at the Red Planet on Wednesday (Oct. 19), with Schiaparelli dropping down to the Martian surface as its mothership enters orbit around Mars.
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