Was Europe's Mars landing successful?

UPDATE: Oct. 19, 2016, 12:39 p.m. EDT European mission managers have just confirmed that the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter performed its burn successfully and is likely in some kind of orbit around Mars. Engineers will still need more data before they confirm its orbit, but at the moment it's looking good.

The lander, however, is a different matter. Mission managers say that the Mars Express data collected during the lander's descent was inconclusive, so they will have to wait for more information before figuring out whether the landing was successful for not.

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UPDATE: Oct. 19, 2016, 11:10 a.m. EDT The Schiaparelli lander has made its descent to Mars, but mission controllers are still waiting to find out if the lander is safe and functioning on the red planet. Scientists may need to wait a few hours yet before they have confirmation of the landing because signal was lost with the lander before it actually made it down to the surface.

Europe's Mars Express orbiter will be listening for Schiaparelli to see if it can detect the lander's position on the planet. Stay tuned for updates as they come, and watch live in the window below.

UPDATE: Oct. 19, 2016, 10:41 a.m. EDT The Schiaparelli lander is about to enter Mars' atmosphere now, starting its descent to the red planet's surface. Mission controllers likely won't know if the landing is successful for some time as they wait a signal relayed from the planet after landing.

UPDATE: Oct. 19, 2016, 9:13 a.m. EDT Live coverage of the Mars arrival of the ExoMars mission has started on the European Space Agency's website. Watch live in the window below.

Mars is about to get a double-whammy.

On Wednesday, the ExoMars mission -- a two-spacecraft joint venture between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia -- will arrive at Mars after a 7-month journey through space. The mission's orbiter will attempt to get into orbit around Mars on Wednesday, the same day as the mission's lander will try to touch down softly on the planet's surface.

The two craft -- the Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli lander -- make up the first half of the two-part ExoMars mission, tasked with beaming back data about whether Mars does or has ever played host to life.

The ESA will host live webcasts for people interested in watching from mission control as the Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli lander make it into orbit around Mars and onto its surface, respectively.

The webcast will begin at 9 a.m. ET with ESA coverage of the landing and orbit insertion. You can watch it in the window below.

You can also watch the webcast directly through ESA's Livestream page or the space agency's Facebook page.

Schiaparelli is not a full-scale mission for the ESA and Russia. The lander is designed as a technology demonstration that should help scientists and engineers figure out exactly how to land a larger mission -- the second half of ExoMars -- on the planet.

The lander will take a series of photos of its descent. The photos should be released Thursday if all goes according to plan.

If Schiaparelli successfully lands and transmits data back from the red planet, it will mark the first time the ESA has delivered a working mission to Mars. To date, only NASA has successfully landed and controlled rovers and landers on the rust-colored world.

ExoMars in general is setting out to to sniff out gases in the thin Martian atmosphere and eventually dig beneath the surface of the planet to find any hint of past or present life.