Thirteen years after its first, failed attempt to place a rover on Mars, Europe will reach a crucial stage on Sunday in a fresh quest to scour the red planet for signs of life, this time with Russia.

Mission controllers will instruct a spacecraft about 175 million kilometers from Earth to release and steer a paddling pool-sized lander toward the red planet's cold, dry surface.

Scheduled to arrive on Wednesday, the short-lived lander's sole purpose is to prepare the way for a subsequent rover that will drill into Mars in search of extra-terrestrial life.

"Our goal here is to prove we can get to the surface, do science, take data," said European Space Agency science adviser Mark McCaughrean.

The 600-kilogram lander, dubbed Schiaparelli, will separate from its mother ship, the Trace Gas Orbiter, after a seven-month, 496 million-km trek from Earth.

The lander and the TGO - which will enter into orbit around Mars to check its atmosphere for gases given off by living organisms - comprise the first phase of the joint European-Russian ExoMars project.

The second phase, due for launch in 2020 after a two-year funding delay, is the ExoMars rover, for which Schiaparelli will be testing entry and soft-landing technology.

More than half of the attempts by the United States, Russia and Europe to land and operate craft on the Martian surface since the 1960s have failed.

The last time Europe tried, the British-built Beagle 2 disappeared without a trace after separating from the Mars Express mother ship in December 2003.

It was finally spotted in January last year in a NASA picture of Mars. It showed that even though Beagle 2 failed to establish contact, it had successfully landed.

If there is life on Mars, it is unlikely to be found on the surface, which is bombarded by ultra violet and cosmic rays.

But scientists say traces of methane in Mars' thin atmosphere may be an indicator of something stirring underground.

(China Daily 10/15/2016 page1)