It's a busy time for space exploration: in the span of six weeks, we've had a new planetary mission launch (OSIRIS-REx), a long-lived mission come to an end (Rosetta), and now, a mission arriving at its interplanetary destination. ESA's ExoMars will arrive at Mars on Wednesday, October 19. The landing will be happening during the joint meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress and the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, so I'll be with a lot of excited space scientists in Pasadena to watch the show. The landing happens at 07:48 PDT / 10:48 EDT / 14:48 UTC / 16:48 CEST and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is expected to complete its 134-minute orbit insertion burn at about 08:23 PDT / 11:23 EDT / 15:23 UTC / 17:23 CEST. You can watch it all via livestream at http://esa.int.

ESA released a couple of cool videos today showing the geometry of the two spacecraft's arrival. The action will begin this Sunday, October 16, at 07:42 PDT / 10:42 EDT / 14:42 UTC / 16:43 CEST, when Schiaparelli will separate from the orbiter. They'll continue on nearly parallel tracks, with the orbiter making a slight diversion burn in order to target a spot just past Mars rather than onto Mars, like the lander. On orbit insertion day, here's how things will play out, with a third spacecraft, Mars Express, flying overhead to record Schiaparelli's transmissions for later playback.