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Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search (Forwarded)
"Andrew Yee" wrote in message .. . Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council Swindon, U.K. Contact: Peter Barratt Email: Gill Ormrod Tel: +44 (0)1793-442012 Email: Julia Maddock Tel: +44 (0)1793-442094 Email: 26 January 2004 Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search A real shame. Hopefully they'll fly again someday. -- -Randy (OF+) 'Up the stairs. Into the fire.' No contact has been made with the Beagle 2 lander, despite repeated efforts over the last few days to communicate via the Mars Express and Mars Odyssey spacecraft and the Jodrell Bank radio telescope in Cheshire, UK. At a press briefing in London this afternoon, members of the Beagle 2 team described the latest efforts to contact their missing lander. "We haven’t found Beagle 2, despite three days of intensive searching," said Professor Colin Pillinger, lead scientist for Beagle 2. "Under those circumstances, we have to begin to accept that, if Beagle 2 is on the Martian surface, it is not active. "That isn’t to say that we are going to give up on Beagle. There is one more thing that we can do -- however, it is very much a last resort. We will be asking the American Odyssey spacecraft (team) tomorrow whether they will send an embedded command -- a hail to Beagle with a command inside it. If it gets through, it will tell Beagle to switch off and reload the software. We are now working on the basis that there is a corrupt system and the only way we might resurrect is to send that command." "We can also ask Mars Express to send that command. However, they cannot send it probably until the 2 or 3 February," he added. "We’ll move with the next phase in the search for Beagle 2," said Professor Pillinger. "We have discussed on our side of the house what we intend to do in the future. We are dedicated to trying to refly Beagle 2 in some shape or form, therefore we need to know how far it got because we need know which parts of this mission we don’t have to study in further detail." Detailing the efforts to contact Beagle 2 in recent days, Mark Sims, Beagle 2 Mission Manager from the University of Leicester, explained that the lander should have entered an emergency communication mode known as CSM2 no later than 22 January. In this mode, the spacecraft’s receiver is switched on throughout daylight hours on Mars. The only possible explanation that no communication has been established during the last few days is that the lander’s battery is in a low state of charge. Meanwhile, the academia-industry "Tiger Team" at the National Space Centre in Leicester is beginning to concentrate on detailed analysis of the possible causes for failure of the mission and the lessons that can be learned for future missions. The analysis of the mission now under way includes an assessment of the landing site ellipse from orbital images, reanalysis of atmospheric conditions during the entry into the Martian atmosphere on 25 December, examination of the separation from Mars Express and of the cruise phase preceding arrival at Mars. One extremely useful piece of evidence could be provided by an image of the lander. The team is hoping that the High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express or the camera on board Mars Global Surveyor may eventually be able to capture an image that reveals its location on the Martian surface. For further details on Beagle 2 and Mars Express see the following websites: * http://www.beagle2.com * http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Mars * http://www.esa.int/mars Timeline and Notes for Editors, http://www.pparc.ac.uk/mars/news/nw_nfe.asp |
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Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search (Forwarded)
"RandyW" wrote in news:0CeRb.236
$Qy4.34444@typhoon01: "Andrew Yee" wrote in message .. . 26 January 2004 Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search A real shame. Hopefully they'll fly again someday. The engineers for this flight were overconfident. When NASA lost MPL a few years ago, they listened to widespread criticism that telemetry was not available all the way down. The change was made for the MER program and we have seen, with great fanfare, how effective that was. Engineers in California were able to track every step taken by the vehicle as it approached the surface. MGS was right over the landing site to attempt to photograph it, and succeeded in seeing the parachute, backshell, heatshield and lander (reflecting brilliantly). Why on earth did the Beagle 2 team not take their cue from NASA's MPL disaster and provide some means of finding out what went wrong. Instead now the despondent engineers have been working for over a month to talk to a spacecraft that may be no more than vapour in the Martian atmosphere. They just can't tell what happened to it and that is very bad engineering. Landing on Mars is still extremely experimental so if soem science must be sacrificed to provide reliable telemetry to the ground, that must be done. Otherwise the attempt to land becomes nothing more than a pot- shot. Anyway, NASA has recovered well from its previous Mars fiascos and has proved the system used to land the twin MERs is effective. All future Mars landings will need to integrate this or similar technology, or risk being cut from the budget. Mark |
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Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search (Forwarded)
"mlm" schrieb im Newsbeitrag ... "RandyW" wrote in news:0CeRb.236 $Qy4.34444@typhoon01: "Andrew Yee" wrote in message .. . 26 January 2004 Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search A real shame. Hopefully they'll fly again someday. The engineers for this flight were overconfident. When NASA lost MPL a few years ago, they listened to widespread criticism that telemetry was not available all the way down. The change was made for the MER program and we have seen, with great fanfare, how effective that was. Engineers in California were able to track every step taken by the vehicle as it approached the surface. MGS was right over the landing site to attempt to photograph it, and succeeded in seeing the parachute, backshell, heatshield and lander (reflecting brilliantly). Well, yes, but the problem was that the whole mission was originally planned without any lander and then someone got ideas. So they couldn't change mars express anymore (I mean not make it bigger or give it more thrusters or whatever) and glued this thing on. They probably thought that it wouldn't matter much if it crashed because the main thing is the express orbiter. Result: Big PR desaster. They should have marketed it from the start as a side experiment. Lots of Greetings! Volker |
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Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search (Forwarded)
"Volker Hetzer" wrote in
: "mlm" schrieb im Newsbeitrag ... "RandyW" wrote in news:0CeRb.236 $Qy4.34444@typhoon01: "Andrew Yee" wrote in message .. . 26 January 2004 Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search A real shame. Hopefully they'll fly again someday. The engineers for this flight were overconfident. When NASA lost MPL a few years ago, they listened to widespread criticism that telemetry was not available all the way down. The change was made for the MER Well, yes, but the problem was that the whole mission was originally planned without any lander and then someone got ideas. So they couldn't change mars express anymore (I mean not make it bigger or give it more thrusters or whatever) and glued this thing on. They probably thought that it wouldn't matter much if it crashed because the main thing is the express orbiter. Result: Big PR desaster. They should have marketed it from the start as a side experiment. Lots of Greetings! Volker Of course you are right, but now they will have to realize that doing things this way does not work. NASA learned this the hard way with the triple failure which MPL was involved in -- that cost NASA a lot of bad press, and put the Mars program at risk. Of course, if ESA had landed Beagle II safely, we (and I) would all be saying they were geniuses for doing it for 1/10 the cost of the NASA rovers. ESA deserves great praise for putting Mars Express safely into orbit. It will return some very interesting data. Mark |
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Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search (Forwarded)
Of course, if ESA had landed Beagle II safely, we (and I) would all be
saying they were geniuses for doing it for 1/10 the cost of the NASA rovers. Okay....this has finally bugged me enough... The Beagle probe alone cost 80 million for just one probe.... We got TWO rovers for 800 million (PLUS the orbiter)... So the cost advantage already is down to 4 to 1.... And lets face it....the rovers are SOOOO much more capable ....... In my opinion the rovers give you so much more science bang for the buck that there is no comparsion.... So, the beagle is NOT a cost effective science miracle (assuming it had even worked)......its only a miracle that anything at all could have been done for only 80 million.... take care Blll |
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Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search (Forwarded)
In message , BllFs6
writes Of course, if ESA had landed Beagle II safely, we (and I) would all be saying they were geniuses for doing it for 1/10 the cost of the NASA rovers. Okay....this has finally bugged me enough... The Beagle probe alone cost 80 million for just one probe.... We got TWO rovers for 800 million (PLUS the orbiter)... Which orbiter? Isn't Mars Odyssey a separate mission, with a separate budget? -- Save the Hubble Space Telescope! Remove spam and invalid from address to reply. |
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Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search (Forwarded)
"BllFs6" wrote in message ... Of course, if ESA had landed Beagle II safely, we (and I) would all be saying they were geniuses for doing it for 1/10 the cost of the NASA rovers. Okay....this has finally bugged me enough... The Beagle probe alone cost 80 million for just one probe.... We got TWO rovers for 800 million (PLUS the orbiter)... What ORBITER? Do you mean MGS - that one went separately, and cost 210 M$ + 20M$ operations/year. The cost of Beagle+ MEX is 300 M euros, including operations. So we have something like 210 + 820 + (20*n) = 1 billion vs. 300 mil. euros (which is a bit more in $ recently..-) So the cost advantage already is down to 4 to 1.... Well, had Beagle II worked, it would seem more like 1:2. But it is difficult to compare very different missions anyway. (The unsuccessfull orbiter Mars Observer, lost in 1993, cost about 900M$) And lets face it....the rovers are SOOOO much more capable ....... Depends on how you measure capability. Providing nice pictures - equal (but MER can move). Geology - MER has an advantage, since it moves. Science results - very arguable. Depends on which one hits the sweet spot. Remember, they share a lot of instruments - cameras, Moessbauer spectrometer (which is actually the SAME one, built by the same company), rock abrasion tool, but I think Beagle has some instruments that MER doesn't have - it even has a microphone! In my opinion the rovers give you so much more science bang for the buck that there is no comparsion.... So, the beagle is NOT a cost effective science miracle (assuming it had even worked)......its only a miracle that anything at all could have been done for only 80 million.... take care Blll I hope there will be Beagle III. JD |
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Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search (Forwarded)
"BllFs6" schrieb im Newsbeitrag ... Of course, if ESA had landed Beagle II safely, we (and I) would all be saying they were geniuses for doing it for 1/10 the cost of the NASA rovers. Okay....this has finally bugged me enough... The Beagle probe alone cost 80 million for just one probe.... We got TWO rovers for 800 million (PLUS the orbiter)... So the cost advantage already is down to 4 to 1.... And lets face it....the rovers are SOOOO much more capable ....... They analyze rocks and make pictures, right? It's still a lottery whether they landed in an area where interesting stuff is not more than 500m away. In my opinion the rovers give you so much more science bang for the buck that there is no comparsion.... They do different science. I think the drill was worth it. (But I also think it was worth being done properly.) So, the beagle is NOT a cost effective science miracle (assuming it had even worked)......its only a miracle that anything at all could have been done for only 80 million.... Right. And if it had worked it would *still* have worked only by chance and not because of the marvellous engineering and foresight. I found that express stuff a bit like all those balloon earth circumnavigations. Everyone tries it, one finally manages it and suddenly it's not because he was the lucky one but because he was the best one. Lots of Greetings! Volker |
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Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search (Forwarded)
And lets face it....the rovers are SOOOO much more capable .......
They analyze rocks and make pictures, right? It's still a lottery whether they landed in an area where interesting stuff is not more than 500m away. Yeah...but its ONE hell of a crap shoot to hope the interesting rock/soil happens to be UNDERNEATH where you randomly landed vs within a few hundred meters (or more)... The rovers possible sample size is so much bigger that there is no comparision... The rovers should be able to analyze dozens of rocks, produce very high quality images of hundreds and decent quality images of thousands.... And geologists can tell ALOT just from looking at rocks....so calling the pictures just pretty is very misleading.....I'd even go so far as to say if the geologist had a choice of just analyzing one rock or being able to quality image a few dozen they would pick the imaging... take care It just bugs me that people keep talking about how cheap the Beagle is/was....sure it was and a VW bug is cheaper than commercial dump truck.....so what? Blll |
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