After a successful launch from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in March, the ExoMars spacecraft is making good progress on its 500 million km trip to Mars.

The joint European and Russian mission will perform science, test lander and descent technology, and may help solve the mystery of why there is methane on Mars. The gas could indicate a geological origin or past or present life - most likely from microbes. The mission carries four scientific packages with Russia developing one of the three spectrometers on board the orbiter’s Atmospheric Chemistry Suite.

This film provides an update of ExoMars’ journey. It includes the first test image from the Trace Gas Orbiter’s high-resolution camera and looks ahead to a major course correction manoeuvre in July. The spacecraft will then be lined up for arrival at Mars on 19 October 2016.

It includes interviews with Thomas Passvogel, Head of Science Projects, ESA (English); Oleg Korablev, ACS Experiment Principal Investigator (Russian); Nicolas Thomas, CaSSIS Experiment Principal Investigator, University of Bern (English).