Not everyone is having a Merry Christmas today. The European Space Agency‘s mission to Mars is lost in space, as it were.
Mars eats spacecraft like they were Christmas candycanes. Why is it traveling the millions of miles to orbit is easy and the 200 miles from orbit to the ground is hard?
Guess it’s like the old joke: “It’s not the fall that kills you. It’s the sudden stop at the end.”
As in auto-body work and many other challenges in life, getting 90% of the way there takes 10% effort- getting the last 10% takes 90% of the work.
Victor