Congratulations to NASA: Beagle 2 Team Still Hopes To Repeat MarsLanding Success (Forwarded)

Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
Swindon, U.K.

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Gill Ormrod
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Julia Maddock
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The Beagle 2 Media Centre is located at:

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4 January 2004

Congratulations to NASA

Beagle 2 Team Still Hopes To Repeat Mars Landing Success

At a press briefing in London today, Professor Colin Pillinger (Open
University), Beagle lead scientist, and Dr Mark Sims (University of Leicester),
the mission manager, congratulated their colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory on the successful landing of the Spirit rover on Mars.

"I'd like to give congratulations to NASA and the Spirit team for getting the
lander down safely," said Professor Pillinger. "We wish them every luck."

Adding his congratulations, Mark Sims said, "I'd like to reiterate the
international cooperation we've been getting in terms of looking for Beagle. In
particular, the JPL team which has been working very strange hours supporting
the Odyssey passes, Lockheed Martin, who've been running the Odyssey spacecraft,
Jodrell Bank, Westerborg, the British Astronomical Association and Malin Space
Science Systems. Mike Malin is looking at imaging the landing site potentially
from tomorrow."

Meanwhile, the search for Beagle 2 goes on.

"We haven't in any shape or form given up on Beagle 2," said Professor Pillinger.

"We have realised that Mars Express is not in the orbit we originally expected,
so our communication strategy is now different from the one that we explained at
the beginning of last week."

Describing the ongoing work at the Lander Operations Control Centre, Mark Sims
explained that teams from the University of Leicester, SciSys and Astrium are
continuing their efforts to identify possible failure modes that can be addressed.

"We're still concentrating on both the communications and timing/software
issues, and working our way through the logic and fault tree on the basis that
Beagle 2 is on the surface of Mars and for some reason is failing to talk to
us," said Dr. Sims.

"There are six or seven scenarios that we're still working through and we still
can't eliminate any of those."

However, possible failure scenarios involving a reset of the clock hardware and
a problem with a tilted antenna seem to have been ruled out. Today's successful
transmission of signals from the Spirit rover via Mars Odyssey also indicates
that the radio on board NASA's orbiter is working properly.

Meanwhile, an attempt to send blind commands to Beagle 2 via Mars Odyssey on
31st December also resulted in no obvious response from the lander.

There has also been no response from the Beagle 2 transceiver during 11
programmed passes. Unfortunately, the last four contact opportunities
pre-programmed into Beagle 2's computer no longer coincide with Mars Express on
its current orbit, so the team is now relying on the spacecraft switching to
various back-up communication modes.

The mission team is now waiting for their little lander to switch to one of its
backup communication modes. Beagle 2 could already be operating in
'communication search mode 1', during which it listens for 80 minutes during
both the Martian day and night in an effort to establish contact with an
available orbiter at Mars Odyssey overflight times.

If no link is established by this method, 'communication search mode 2' should
eventually be activated. The earliest date by which this mode could become
operational was 3rd January. In this mode, the receiver is on for 59 minutes out
of every hour throughout the Martian day, and the spacecraft sends a carrier
signal five times in each daylight hour. During the Martian night, Beagle 2's
receiver will be on for one minute out of every five, but there is no carrier
signal.

Although Mars Odyssey will continue to search for the lander, Mars Express will
soon become the prime communication link with Beagle 2. After reaching its
operational polar orbit today, ESA's orbiter should pass over the Beagle 2
landing site regularly from 7th January onwards. Various modes of communication
can be attempted during passes by Mars Express, although the team anticipates
starting on 7th and 8th January with the standard 'hail and command' which has
been used with Mars Odyssey.

The first four passes with Mars Express (7th, 8th, 9th and 10th January) are
almost directly over the landing site and only 5 to 8 minutes long, so they are
not ideal for communication, whereas the opportunities on 12th and 14th January
are potentially much longer.

Notes for editor:

Future communication 'windows' will be listed on the Beagle 2 Web site.

The next Beagle 2 press briefing is scheduled to take place at the Media Centre
in Camden on Wednesday 7 January, starting at 11.30 GMT, when there will be a
'live' opportunity to monitor the success of the first attempt to communicate
with Beagle 2 via Mars Express.

All members of the media wishing to attend should register in advance by e-mailing


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