Beagle 1
Posted on 02/11/2004 5:13:48 PM PST by blam
Beagle 2 scientists say craft is lost
Simon Jeffery and agencies
Wednesday February 11, 2004
Hopes of finding Beagle 2, the British Mars probe, today appeared close to zero after its creators declared it to be lost. There is still a slim chance that Mars Express - the European space agency orbiter circling the red planet - will pick up a signal, but Beagle will now be subject to the sort of inquiry held when any spacecraft goes missing.
Colin Pillinger, the head of the team that sent it into space, said the investigation would establish the mission's areas of greatest risk as well as what could be done to alleviate them on any future mission.
"Whilst orbiting spacecraft continue to listen out for Beagle 2, the project has now officially moved on to assessing the possible reasons for the lack of communication," Mr Pillinger said in a statement.
Beagle 2, part of the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission, had been due to land on Mars on Christmas Day.
It did not send out its landing signal as had been expected, and subsequent attempts to communicate with it - including efforts by its Mars Express mothership and Nasa's Mars Odyssey orbiter - failed.
Scientists believe that the probe could have landed in a crevice, leaving it unable to open the solar panels needed to charge its batteries.
Alternatively, it could have fallen onto its side, making it hard for orbiters flying overhead to pick up signals.
Efforts to pick up even the faintest of traces using the Lovell radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, Cheshire, and other telescopes around the world, also drew a blank.
Mr Pillinger said that the inquiry would be helped in its search for evidence if cameras scrutinising the landing site could identify a part of Beagle 2, such as its parachute.
The small probe had been designed to look for signs of life on Mars, parachuting down to the surface of the planet to collect soil samples which would be analysed for evidence of past and current biological activity.
The investigation is to be conducted jointly by the British government and the European Space Agency.
It will assess the available data acquired during the development, integration and testing of the Beagle 2 lander on Earth, and the phase of its flight before it was released to Mars.
The decision processes, funding levels, resources, management and responsibilities of the Beagle project will also come under scrutiny.
Mars Express, meanwhile, has functioned as intended, successfully entering orbit on Christmas Day and working well as it began its two-year global survey of the planet.
It has so far sent back unprecedented 3-D high-resolution images of the surface of Mars, and the most direct evidence of water in the form of ice on the planet's south pole.
Wanna go interplanetary? Buy American. We get to AND report back from other worlds.
It's Bush's fault--he had the Air Force use its supersecret Area 51 technology to destroy Beagle 2 so that his oil buddies and Halliburton could make a profit.
Wanna go interplanetary? Buy American. We get to AND report back from other worlds.
As badly as I want to crow about this, I think it is ultimately very sad -- all of Mankind loses out when knowledge is lost due to this kind of accident.
Space travel is inherently dangerous and I really hope this loss (don't forget we almost lost touch with Spirit) makes it clear that the only machine that can properly explore the cosmos is a thinking, breathing Human Being.
R.I.P.
Never send a Beagle to do a retriever's work.........
It set them back from 1975 to 1965.
Beagle 1
It was also pretty bold of the Europeans to attempt with their lack of experience, and surely the odds were against them in getting something this complex right on the first attempt.
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