Posted on 12/27/2003 5:01:39 AM PST by New Horizon
LONDON (AP) - Scientists again failed Saturday to pick up a signal that would confirm Europe's first Mars lander arrived safely on the Red Planet. A third attempt by NASA's orbiting Mars Odyssey - at about 1:15 a.m. EST - made no contact with the Beagle 2, which was supposed to have landed at 9:45 p.m. EST Wednesday. The tiny craft should have started emitting its signal within a few hours.
Britain's Jodrell Bank Observatory, which has twice scanned the Martian surface with its huge radio telescope, also could not detect a signal from the tiny lander, which was sent to Mars to search for signs of life.
Chief Beagle scientist Professor Colin Pillinger has kept an optimistic stance in the face of headlines like the one from the Daily Star newspaper, "The Beagle is Stranded." He appeared more subdued Saturday morning after the latest failure.
He clearly held hope for the Beagle's survival, and was banking on communications help from the Beagle's mother ship, The Mars Express, which is in orbit around Mars and due to start communications Jan. 4.
"We reckon our best chance of a communication with Mars is to wait until Mars Express is available for use," Pillinger told a news conference.
"Mars Express is, after all, our primary route for communication. ... We have to consider it the best way of talking to Beagle 2."
He had said earlier that the Mars Express, which carried Beagle into space and set it loose a week ago, could offer the best chance to get a signal because it is designed to beam back data gathered by Beagle.
The Mars Express went into orbit Thursday, but controllers must change its path from a high elliptical one around the equator to a lower polar orbit that will let it establish contact with Beagle 2.
Unlike Odyssey and the Jodrell telescope, its communications were specifically designed to hear the probe's transmissions, Pillinger said.
Pillinger said both the Mars Odyssey link and communications using Jodrell Bank had been untested. Possible explanations for Beagle's failure to call home include an off-course landing in an area where communication with Mars Odyssey was difficult, if not impossible.
Also, transmission from the lander's antenna could be blocked from reaching Mars Odyssey or the ground-based telescopes, the agency said.
Of 34 unmanned American, Soviet and Russian missions to Mars since 1960, two-thirds have ended with the craft lost. If the Beagle 2 springs to life and starts transmitting, it would be only the fourth successful landing on Mars.
Two U.S. Viking spacecraft made it in 1976, while NASA's Mars Pathfinder and its rover vehicle Sojourner reached the surface in 1997.
Several vehicles, most recently NASA's 1999 Mars Polar Lander, have been lost on landing. The Soviet Mars-3 lander made a soft landing in 1970 but failed after sending data for only 20 seconds.
The $370 million European mission aims to search for evidence of life on Mars. Beagle was supposed to have plunged into the Martian atmosphere for 7 1/2 minutes on its way to a landing softened by parachutes and gas bags. Once there, its antennae were to flip open and begin transmitting home.
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On the Net:
Beagle 2: www.beagle2.com
AP-ES-12-27-03 0639EST
Copyright 2003 Associated Press
LOL!
Has anything we sent to Mars actually worked?
There has long been talk of a galactic ghoul that reaches out from the asteroid belt and snacks on Mars spacecraft.
BBC Webpage on Christmas Day.
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