From this thruster type, I found more information: “400 N Chemical Monopropellant Hydrazine Thruster”
http://www.space-propulsion.com/spacecraft-propulsion/hydrazine-thrusters/400n-thruster.html

Thus, the CHT-400 is a monopropellant thruster. There may not have been much of a spectacular explosion, after all, outside of the dust, sand, dirt, and mangled parts that were kicked up (and bursting hydrazine and helium tanks).

Since there was so much blackening in the photographs, I expected that the thrusters were hypergolic and had charred a lot of material as it sprayed away. A bit disappointing, but now I wonder about the darkened material. I am going to hypothesize that the material underground is darker than the surface material. In a way similar to the Moon having bright streaks radiating away from impacts, Mars may form dark streaks.

(Come to think about it, black char is usually the result of heat oxidizing surface material, but there isn’t much free oxygen for anything to char on Mars. Earthly experience may not be as useful on other planets as we expect it to be.)

All this stuff, is amazing.

A repeat from me, but a good one;
7 Minutes of Terror:
Curiosity Rover’s Risky Mars Landing
https://youtu.be/h2I8AoB1xgU

Excellent animation/explanation of a truly incredible piece of engineering.
(Rube Goldberg Meets Flash Gordon, On Mars, In Space!)

More here:

Schiaparelli’s propulsion system comprises three groups of three thrusters, attached to the outer rim of the surface platform and spaced at 120-degree intervals. The surface platform also carries three spherical hydrazine tanks, each with a capacity of 16 kilograms.

These are linked individually to each thruster cluster but separated from each other to prevent any flow from one tank into another. A single pressure tank filled with helium supplies the gas pressure for feeding fuel to the thrusters. A complex system of valves, and flow and pressure controllers, ensures that each thruster cluster exerts exactly the same force during the final descent phase.

Wayne and Edward: From the ExoMars website, the propulsion system is made of “3 clusters of 3 hydrazine engines (400 N each), operated in pulse-modulation.”

I should add that the website repeated refers to this as liquid propellant.

(It doesn’t specify at wiki whether it’s mono/bi/tri (questioning) or what & haven’t been to the ESA website.)

Which raises the philosophical question: if a lander crashes on Mars, and no one is there to see the fireball, did the price of tea in China increase or decrease?

Cursory search at Wikipedia, (sorry) & their Schiaparelli page appears well-done & up-to-date.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiaparelli_EDM_lander

>Hydrazine for the retro-rockets.

[ALL this stuff, is Amazing. Even when not entirely successful.]

referencing the fuel on-board the lander;
What were they using & what is the explosion-risk, given a “catastrophic failure?”

Isn’t that a bird I see flying in the vicinity of the crash site? (Har…)

However I must point out, there’s still the Phobosians to worry about.