New Bid Fails To Raise Beagle (Mars)

Ananova ^ | 1-9-2004

[blam]

New bid fails to raise Beagle

Scientists say two further attempts to contact Britain's Beagle 2 Mars probe have failed.

The craft's mothership, Mars Express, flew over the landing site at 12.50pm yesterday and 1.27pm today but heard no signal.

Mars Express was in its most sensitive listening mode. Hopes of finding the lander, which has been missing since Christmas Day, are now fading fast.

More passes will be made tomorrow at 2.04pm and on Monday at 2.02am.

Story filed: 18:10 Friday 9th January 2004

[blam]

Does not look good for the Beagle.

Meanwhile, 'Spirit' is stuck in the 'mud'...and, Opportunity is in-bound with it's Mars landing scheduled for, 1-24-2004.

[Support Free Republic]

Rank	Location	Receipts	Donors/Avg		Freepers/Avg		Monthlies
63	West Virginia	10.00	1	10.00	69	0.14	30.00	2

Thanks for donating to Free Republic!

Move your locale up the leaderboard!

[_Jim]

"Beagle - phone home."

[_Jim]

Visually or electronically (by radio, for telemetry, etc)?

[_Jim]

Recently, there were visual images taken of craft that had landed there previously (through the use of Mars orbiting satellite) - I assume that the same techniques could be used to view either Beagle or the debris field that resulted from a muffed landing ...

[Unmarked Package]

There will be other attempts to contact Beagle 2 over the next several days. Besides more radio contact attempts, another method will be photo-recon to search for the location of the rover and/or parachute on the surface using the high-res camera in the Mars Express orbiter. They also intend to use a Mars Express instrument to search for ammonia in the area of the landing zone because the air bags protecting Beagle 2 are filled with ammonia. I find it especially interesting that one step in the attempt will involve cooperation with the JPL MER team. The Beagle 2 team will ask JPL to command Spirit to transmit briefly on a frequency that Beagle 2 uses while a European radio telescope listens. That will confirm if it’s a viable search method for Beagle 2.

[Hiwayman]

I heard the Brits made the Beagle 2 lander out of "fiberboard" (cardboard) to save project costs. Anyone else hear this?

[blam]

"That will confirm if it’s a viable search method for Beagle 2."

Interesting test...I'm sure our guys are glad to help.

[blam]

"I heard the Brits made the Beagle 2 lander out of "fiberboard" (cardboard) to save project costs. Anyone else hear this?"

I don't know but, I trust their scientists decisions.

[Professional Engineer]

If it does the job, there's no reason not to.

[tubebender]

Meanwhile, 'Spirit' is stuck in the 'mud'..

You are kidding of course ???

[mickie]

Please give us an update on "Spirit".

[_Jim]

The Beagle 2 team will ask JPL to command Spirit to transmit briefly on a frequency that Beagle 2 uses while a European radio telescope listens.

What - the 'radio telescope' used by the Europeans isn't "frequency agile" and able to be tuned to the 'downlink' frequency used by Spirit - thereby validating the 'radio path' from Mars back to Earth?

[blam]

"Please give us an update on "Spirit"."

Go here for an update.

[blam]

"You are kidding of course ???"

No...it's their word, 'mud.' After they had crunched up the air bags they noticed a patch of something like 'folded mud' underneath. Now, I don't think anyone thinks it's mud but, no-one can explain what it is and why it looks like mud.

[Unmarked Package]

What - the 'radio telescope' used by the Europeans isn't "frequency agile" and able to be tuned to the 'downlink' frequency used by Spirit - thereby validating the 'radio path' from Mars back to Earth?

It's my understanding the purpose of the test is to simulate as closely as possible, using Spirit, the signal frequency and strength they expect the Beagle 2 presents from the surface of Mars (if it's transmitting) and try to detect it with the radio telescope on Earth. It's an attempt to remove as many variables from the test conditions relative to the real objective and prove that the problem rests with the Beagle 2 rover and not with the search methodology.

[tubebender]

I saw those pics on a thread and I wondered if it would build up on the tires and cause a problem.

Of course they could have found the source of Play Doh...

[blam]

"I saw those pics on a thread and I wondered if it would build up on the tires and cause a problem."

Yeah, me too. Someone said that it would not be rolling fast enough to sling the 'mud' all over.