Beagle ... alas

Perhaps there's a clue to Beagle 2's fate in the picture taken as it
departed from Mars Express?

You'll recall that the Beagle is captured at the very left edge of the
picture, rather than being centred in the frame.

I wonder if that means it was ejected slightly faster than planned? At the
distance from Mars where separation occurred even a very small increase in
velocity could mean a very different trajectory and a very different landing
site from that planned.

In article gcMGb.820687$6C4.737135@pd7tw1no,
Canonbie Guy wrote:
I wonder if that means it was ejected slightly faster than planned? At the
distance from Mars where separation occurred even a very small increase in
velocity could mean a very different trajectory and a very different landing
site from that planned.

Unfortunately, Jodrell Bank would have heard it had it been anywhere on
the correct side of Mars, so even a very large location error is now
pretty much precluded. It's not looking good.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
In article ,
OM om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote:
...The only thing I can say about this apparent failure is that I
honestly hope this is a hard slap in the face to Europe as a whole to
wake them up to the fact that "Faster/Better/Cheaper" does not work...

Note that Mars Express, which successfully entered Mars orbit, is also a
F/B/C project, by ESA standards. (ESA finds it much harder than NASA to
do such things.)

And F/B/C works just fine when done right. (E.g., see my signature.)
But even for a F/B/C project, there is such a thing as Not Enough Money.
Beagle 2 has always been a distinctly high-risk mission, because of its
running-on-fumes budget... but the alternative was no lander on Mars
Express at all.

Exactly! FBC is not magic. You can't point an FBC
wand at an RFP folded around a $20 bill and magically
get a functional interplanetary spacecraft and a
successful space science mission.

But it does work, and has worked, when done right. In
my opinion FBC is a no brainer and too date a nearly
unqualified success. CONTOUR was a big hit, as were
MCO and MPL, but the successes have been tremendous, and
unrelenting.


I was *really* hoping Beagle 2 would make it. I really, really was.

Don't write it off just yet.

I won't, but I don't have much hope. I know how cheaply
it was built (by all accounts, too cheaply) and how
little chance it ever had (slim at best). But it's
loss points out an advantage of FBC even when done
wrong. When you lose you don't lose much, and that
can sometimes be very important. When Mars Observer
died it meant the loss of a Mars probe when such were
once a decade, and thus a tremendous loss in money,
time, and effort. When MCO and MPL were lost it meant
much less, which is why Mars got a new satellite a
mere two years after that disaster. In the old way
Mars with without spacecraft companions for over a
decade, now it hosts three functional spacecraft and
will (with even bad luck) harbor more soon. Eggs and
baskets and all that, seems to be as good advice with
Mars as with anything else.

(joshua) wrote in message . com...
*If* Beagle2 remains silent, then it would mean that two of the three
spacecraft in the current Mars wave (Kozumi, Beagle2, Mars Express
orbiter) failed. This is in line with the failure rate of Mars
Missions (roughly two-thirds).

And there are those who are serious about sending manned missions to
Mars.

I'm all for doing it when the technology is reliable but one for three
would be looking pretty grim with a graveyard in solar orbit. Out of
the six Apollo missions that made it to the lunar surface, wanna give
odds that we would have continued if twelve astros had died in the
process?

First return to the Moon, THEN Mars.

In message , Mark
Herring writes
(joshua) wrote in message
.com...
*If* Beagle2 remains silent, then it would mean that two of the three
spacecraft in the current Mars wave (Kozumi, Beagle2, Mars Express
orbiter) failed. This is in line with the failure rate of Mars
Missions (roughly two-thirds).

And there are those who are serious about sending manned missions to
Mars.

I'm all for doing it when the technology is reliable but one for three
would be looking pretty grim with a graveyard in solar orbit. Out of
the six Apollo missions that made it to the lunar surface, wanna give
odds that we would have continued if twelve astros had died in the
process?

First return to the Moon, THEN Mars.

Isn't the usual argument that you have a much greater chance of success
with a human at the controls, rather than a timer and a radar altimeter?
In retrospect, the US was probably lucky to achieve 5 out of 7
successful Surveyor landings on the Moon, and a $2000 million budget
(1984 values - don't ask me why) probably helped.
--
Rabbit arithmetic - 1 plus 1 equals 10
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

"Mark Herring" wrote in message
om...
(joshua) wrote in message
. com...
*If* Beagle2 remains silent, then it would mean that two of the three
spacecraft in the current Mars wave (Kozumi, Beagle2, Mars Express
orbiter) failed. This is in line with the failure rate of Mars
Missions (roughly two-thirds).

And there are those who are serious about sending manned missions to
Mars.

I'm all for doing it when the technology is reliable but one for three
would be looking pretty grim with a graveyard in solar orbit. Out of
the six Apollo missions that made it to the lunar surface, wanna give
odds that we would have continued if twelve astros had died in the
process?

First return to the Moon, THEN Mars.

.... if anything like Apollo 13 happens on a Mars mission ......... no happy
Hollywood ending.

In article , Remy
Villeneuve wrote:

We'll see how it goes tonight near 3:00 EST.


Oups, time conversion mishap on my part... But bad news is that Jodrel
couldn't acquire the carrier signal. Now it's looking grim.

Ah well, Mars scores another one...At least Express is in orbit!

It gives a whole new method for dealing with the Great Martian Ghoul -
take your valuable orbiter, tack on a 65kg sacrifice... ;-)

--
-Andrew Gray

Yes, FBC does not work. Spend the proper amount of money on missions
and TEST, TEST, TEST. When you are done testing, then test some more.
Then test a little more, and then test some more for the hell of it.

FBC works just fine. There is no contradiction between FBC and adequate
testing.

(And it's not like slower/worse/costlier has a conspicuously better track
record, especially at Mars...)

I agree with your response, but there have been too many examples brought up
in this newsgroup, as well as the news feeds, that FBC is just plain flawed.
My belief that the opinion voiced earlier this year that you can get get two
of these options by only sacrificing the third, is the way to go. It was
called "FBC: Pick 2". I like to rhyme it by saying "FBC: 2 Out Of 3".

In short: tailor "FBC: 2 out of 3" to your needs after reviewing the
mission in question, its objectives, its destination, and the time and funds
willing to be spent on the project. Pick your 2 primary goals and design
your mission. _Complete_ testing of hardware and software should always be
considered an unavoidable overhead cost that is figured into the "C" portion
of the equation. If, after a preliminary review, you cannot meet your 2
selected goals, redefine the mission or abandon it and allocate the funds to
another project. You can always let time and technology advance until the
mission becomes more feasible under your 2 goals. That's why money spent of
basic R & D is not "wasted".

Finally, schedule monthly reviews to ensure that the project is not
"wandering" away from the two goals that you have chosen. If it does, don't
be afraid to acknowledge it and make hard decisions to bring it back in
line, or even kill it. But NEVER sacrifice testing. Giving up testing to
balance a budget is a false savings. A lost mission is nothing less than a
100% waste of total allocated time (F), manpower (B), and funds (C).

Andrew Gray wrote:

It gives a whole new method for dealing with the Great Martian Ghoul -
take your valuable orbiter, tack on a 65kg sacrifice... ;-)


And hurl it into the crater of Olympus Mons....yes, there is a distinct
pagan south seas island feel to the concept. And Beagle was a virgin, in
that the design was not screwed around with much.

Pat

OM wrote:
On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 08:31:25 GMT, Scott Lowther
wrote:

Jeez. Just a few hours, and the probe has already surrendered.

How much of it was made in France?

...The only thing I can say about this apparent failure is that I
honestly hope this is a hard slap in the face to Europe as a whole to
wake them up to the fact that "Faster/Better/Cheaper" does not work,
and they need to quit being ****ing cheap and SPEND WHAT'S REQUIRED!

Give it a couple of days and the whinging will start about the waste of
money that could have been better spent on schools./hospitals/statues of
Jonny Wilkinson.
--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

"Slipped the surly bonds of Earth...to touch the face of God"