After the successful meeting held last November, ESA chose CIMSA Ingenieria de Sistemas proposal with GMV and IDS as winner for the PARACHANT study. The project officially kicked off in December and will last for one year. CIMSA is leading the parachute design of the GMV lead three-company consortium including also the Italian firm IDS, boasting a wealth of experience in antenna design.

The aim of the PARACHANT project is to analyze possible antenna integration in the parachutes of the future probes that are going to explore the atmosphere and surface of Mars, Venus and Titan. The current trend towards increasingly complex and ambitious missions makes it necessary to seek technological breakthroughs for increasing the transmitted data rate during the atmospheric descent stage. This is precisely what is going to be analyzed in this study: how to harness the parachute surface for integration of a higher gain antenna.

GMV has a long and proven track record in entry and lander missions to other bodies in the Solar System (Huygens, Exomars). In the final stage of the project CIMSA will built a parachute prototype with an integrated antenna and a number of flight tests will be performed by dropping the parachute from an aerostatic balloon. PARACHANT is a trailblazing project that will allow CIMSA to consolidate and enhance its experience in atmospheric entry and exploration missions. This area has bright prospects for the future with missions such as Exomars and Mars Sample Return on the horizon.