High Stakes: Europe Aims for 1st Successful Mars Landing Today

The Schiaparelli lander — part of the European-Russian ExoMars 2016 mission — is scheduled to touch down on the Martian surface this morning at 10:48 a.m. EDT (1448 GMT). You can follow the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of the European Space Agency (ESA). If Schiaparelli performs as expected, today's landing will mark the start of the first fully successful Red Planet surface mission for Europe and Russia.