New Delhi:
The Trace Gas Orbitor (TGO) successfully went into orbit around the Red Planet, but scientists lost contact with Schiaparelli moments before landing on the surface of Mars.
India was the last country to receive a signal from the Schiaparelli lander, a tiny European craft which scientists believe may have reached the surface of Mars, but may not have survived the impact.
Ground controllers waited on Thursday on the status of the lander, which is part of a $1.3 billion European Mars Mission.
The "Schiaparelli" lander, a trial-run for a Mars rover was scheduled to land at 1448 GMT Wednesday (8:18 pm (IST)).
Hours later, the European Space Agency (ESA) confirmed the craft came down, but it was not emitting any signal.
"The lander touched down, that is certain," ESA's Schiaparelli manager Thierry Blancquaert told Agence France-Presse.
"Whether it landed intact, whether it hit a rock or a crater or whether it simply cannot communicate, that I don't know," he said from mission control in Darmstadt, Germany.
Blancquaert said he was "not too optimistic" of receiving a clean bill of health.
This would be Europe's second failed Mars landing in a row.The British-built Beagle 2 robot lab disappeared without trace after separating from its mothership, Mars Express, in 2003.
Schiaparelli had travelled seven months and 496 million kilometres (308 million miles) onboard the European-Russian Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) to come within a million kilometres from Mars on Sunday, when it set off on its own mission to reach the surface.
