Beagle 2/Oh where, oh where can it be?

Minneapolis (Red) Star Tribune ^ | January 2, 2004

[presidio9]

A shift in planetary alignment has given the Mars Express mission crew a respite from their increasingly gloomy holiday task -- listening for a signal from their Beagle 2, which reached the Martian surface on Christmas Day and has been silent ever since.

The lander may or may not be lost, but the odds are not good. Putting a probe on or even near the red planet is an immensely difficult undertaking. Only three spacecraft, all American, have ever reached the surface in good enough shape and circumstances to do their jobs (although one Soviet lander managed to signal for 20 seconds before disappearing in a dust storm). Counting orbital missions, the overall won-lost record for earthling invasions of Mars is 16 and 20; just a couple of weeks ago, Japan abandoned hope for its first Mars orbiter after a troubled five-year journey.

All of which has given the European Space Agency's low-budget, low-tech program a special kind of charm. For a mere $30 million, ESA has flung a 73-pound Frisbee toward the great basin of Isidis Planitia, relying on air bags and a parachute to lessen the impact -- none of that fancy retro-rocket stuff. The Beagle 2, named for Darwin's great ship of discovery, was then to unfold like a clam, generate some solar electricity and broadcast a nine-note pop tune back to the orbiting mother ship.

[cake_crumb]

Growing pet peeve here. When NASA fails, the stupid, arrogant Americans aren't up to the job and the Europeans can do it better because they pool resources - as if NASA doesn't cooperate and coordinate with tems from other countries. When the European Space Agency fails....well, the Americans couldn't do it either and it's really hard to succeed.

[Cardini]

Does get a bit old this Liberal Media thing!

[Cuttnhorse]

I recall cracking up when I first saw the animated presentation of how the Beagle was going to bounce across the planet's serface and deploy. Nice to do things on the cheap, but it looks to me like the gang just peed away $37-million.

[cogitator]

I recall cracking up when I first saw the animated presentation of how the Beagle was going to bounce across the planet's serface and deploy. Nice to do things on the cheap, but it looks to me like the gang just peed away $37-million.

It worked for Pathfinder! (And it's the same way that Spirit and Opportunity will use to land this month. I think the main difference is that they will fire retrorockets to slow the descent speed; Beagle-2 was relying only on a parachute (I think).

[Cuttnhorse]

According to the animation I saw, they used a couple of sets of parachutes with no retro rockets.

[OldFriend]

Let's hope our Spirit and Opportunity has better luck next week.

[ASA Vet]

Barsoom Defense Forces continue to improve with each Jasoom invasion attempt.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Someone somewhere is cursing Joe Lucas.

[JoeSchem]

Actually most all of the Mars Mission success stories are ours. Remembering that NASA is a good example of how NOT to run a space agency, it says something about American know-how that even at our worst we'll still ahead of everyone else.

[Johnny_Cipher]

Someone somewhere is cursing Joe Lucas.

Uh, that would be "every British automobile owner on the planet."

[RightWhale]

Venus is a little different story. NASA landed some number of times. 2? Russia sent about 30 missions, 17 were to land, 10 did land.

[cogitator]

According to the animation I saw, they used a couple of sets of parachutes with no retro rockets.

There is occasionally a value in multiple redundancy, also known as Plan B and Plan C. In this case, if there was some problem with parachute deployment, there was no Plan B. (Unfortunately, if the retros don't fire for Spirit and Opportunity, the same scenario holds.)

If anybody asked me, I'd try to have a system that would slow the lander down enough for the airbags to work with either Plan A (retros) or Plan B (chutes). But cost and weight are considerations that might prevent redundancy like this.

[lepton]

It worked for Pathfinder! (And it's the same way that Spirit and Opportunity will use to land this month. I think the main difference is that they will fire retrorockets to slow the descent speed; Beagle-2 was relying only on a parachute (I think).

So the Beagle-2 should have worked. After all, it's not rocket science... :)

[ninenot]

Apparently this Beagle is acting just like ALL beagles. They run away and are never heard from again, because they are too stupid to know their way home.

[DarthMaulrulesok]

"People of Earth, we are the Mysterians"

"Your attempts to find us with your primitive probe has failed. You will never discover the secrets of the Mysterians"

Anyone remember the old Captain Scarlet show?