Well it has unfortunately been revealed that the lander the ExoMars team had genuinely hoped was just failing to transmit has been revealed through photography, generously provided by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, to have crashed into the hard Martian surface. The ESA believed that the parachute and heat shield were ejected too early and then the retrorockets failed to fire long enough. They also think that when the lander slammed into the surface the unused fuel then exploded. An investigation is expected to follow but this must leave the ESA with a sheer sense of dread. We can only hope that in 2020 the future rover safely lands and we can explore Mars further without the heartache of failure.