hope for Beagle 2 ?

Since Christmas Day, British mission controllers have listened in vain for
a signal from their Beagle 2 Mars
lander.

A number of questions follows from this....

On 4 January, the Mars Express craft, operated by the European Space Agency
(ESA), will begin sweeping the surface of Mars for radio signals from
Beagle 2.

According to one source ( http://www.nature.com/nsu/031229/031229-4.html )
Beagle was supposed to be ejected from Mars Express on dec 24/25 midnight. I
assume we have confirmation that this was successful?
After the eject it was supposed to make entry and descent, deploy pilot
parachute and finally bounce on inflated gas bags on the Mars surface.

Is it correct to assume, that if this was successful then it should be
possible to photograph Beagle down on the Martian surface - after all, its
location must be semi-known? I.e. you might not be able to contact it, but
we should at least be able to know what happened?

If the descent itself failed, then at least I begin to wonder why? Is it to
be "expected" that the descent for such an unmanned craft is a fifty-fifty
chance?

Despite Beagle 2's high media profile - a product of Pillinger's gift for
publicity - Mars Express is the main part of ESA's mission.

And Mars Express is up and running! Somehow the media doesn't seem to get
this positive side of the story.

-Simon

Simon Laub wrote:
On 4 January, the Mars Express craft, operated by the European Space Agency
(ESA), will begin sweeping the surface of Mars for radio signals from
Beagle 2.

According to one source ( http://www.nature.com/nsu/031229/031229-4.html )
Beagle was supposed to be ejected from Mars Express on dec 24/25 midnight. I
assume we have confirmation that this was successful?

From all indications it was nominal until re-entry. Are you going for a
conspiracy thing here?

Is it correct to assume, that if this was successful then it should be
possible to photograph Beagle down on the Martian surface - after all, its
location must be semi-known? I.e. you might not be able to contact it, but
we should at least be able to know what happened?

This is the objective of Mars Express at this time, yes.

If the descent itself failed, then at least I begin to wonder why? Is it to
be "expected" that the descent for such an unmanned craft is a fifty-fifty
chance?

Given the history of Mars probes, landers are running more like 30/70.

Despite Beagle 2's high media profile - a product of Pillinger's gift for
publicity - Mars Express is the main part of ESA's mission.

And Mars Express is up and running! Somehow the media doesn't seem to get
this positive side of the story.

Beagle 2 managed some pretty good public involvement and has the lion's
share of the PR. To the extent that ESA needs PR, they'll probably get
some as soon as Mars Express is in research mode.

Simon Laub wrote:
According to one source ( http://www.nature.com/nsu/031229/031229-4.html )
Beagle was supposed to be ejected from Mars Express on dec 24/25 midnight. I
assume we have confirmation that this was successful?

Beagle 2 was separated from MEX on 19th December, as planned, and the
separation seemed to be succesfull. There is even a photo of the event:
http://www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/M...T0374OD_0.html

However, since the separation, there is no telemetry from Beagle 2.
MEX will begin listening for Beagle 2 in 20 minutes from the time of
writing this.... good luck for the attempt!

Matti Anttila
--
http://masa.net/

Simon Laub wrote:
Since Christmas Day, British mission controllers have listened in vain for
a signal from their Beagle 2 Mars
lander.

A number of questions follows from this....

On 4 January, the Mars Express craft, operated by the European Space Agency
(ESA), will begin sweeping the surface of Mars for radio signals from
Beagle 2.

According to one source ( http://www.nature.com/nsu/031229/031229-4.html )
Beagle was supposed to be ejected from Mars Express on dec 24/25 midnight. I
assume we have confirmation that this was successful?

Yes, there were a couple of pictures of it taken as it departed.

Newsuser "Matti Anttila" wrote ...

However, since the separation, there is no telemetry from Beagle 2.
MEX will begin listening for Beagle 2 in 20 minutes from the time of
writing this.... good luck for the attempt!

No one knows, whether Beagle have had enough power for inboard systems
(before Mars descent).
If not - landing&descent procedure wasn't able to start.

--
(STS)

"Dan Hartung" wrote in message
...

From all indications it was nominal until re-entry. Are you going for a
conspiracy thing here?

Is it correct to assume, that if this was successful then it should be
possible to photograph Beagle down on the Martian surface - after all,
its
location must be semi-known? I.e. you might not be able to contact it,
but
we should at least be able to know what happened?
....
If the descent itself failed, then at least I begin to wonder why? Is it
to
be "expected" that the descent for such an unmanned craft is a
fifty-fifty
chance?

Given the history of Mars probes, landers are running more like 30/70.

I imagine that you can time the descent so you don't run into storms like
the one observed from
Viking : http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/hires/vo2_176b02.gif

Still, even with clear skys these landings seem to be tricky business.
Surely, you wouldn't like to get such 30/70 odds for putting up a
communications satellite?
But ok, you go into the atmosphere at about 12,000 miles per hour. And then
within five minutes you've got to do all the separations and deployments,
lock your radar onto the surface, have the engines provide the right thrust
and get the spacecraft to touch down at close to 0 miles per hour. and
whatever else etc. etc. And you doing this on a budget - not like Viking,
where the budget was well over $1 billion, or far more than current missions
in todays money.

So, does it all come down to practice, or are the crafts simply to cheap,
lacking both a decent propulsion system for the descent and landers that can
take far more abuse? As I recall it, The "Mars Program Independent
Assessment Team Report," blamed previous mission failures on an
inexperienced contractor and civil-service workforce, inadequate testing and
oversight, and poor communications.

Beagle, obviously, hadn't learned from this? But with Spirit on the ground,
is this all in the past now?, or is the next [Mars landing] in two weeks
time going to be same kind of 30/70 thing? In the long run (for Mars
exploration) I simply don't see this as acceptable.

-Simon

Dan Hartung writes:

According to one source (
http://www.nature.com/nsu/031229/031229-4.html ) Beagle was
supposed to be ejected from Mars Express on dec 24/25 midnight. I
assume we have confirmation that this was successful?

From all indications it was nominal until re-entry.

What indications? AFAIK, there was no telemetry from Beagle after
separation -- it was simply not designed in.

I think not having at least some basic telemetry during the approach,
entry and landing phases is a mistake because it leaves us forever in
the dark about what the specific cause of the failure was. NASA
learned the lession from the Polar Lander debacle which had telemetry
turned off during those important phases.

Beagle was a good (and cheap) shot at doing some really good surface
science, and it would have been fantastic if it had worked. Now
however, it would be prudent to replace Beagle with a more robust
mission with continous telemetry coverage. Should that fail too, then
at least we could pinpoint what went wrong, when it happened and
improve that aspect in subsequent missions.

And yes, I know telemetry might not work very well while the lander is
enveloped in plasma during entry, but turning telemetry off during
this phase would be plain silly.

--
Manfred Bartz
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm speechless." -- James Sensenbrenner on the loss of Mars Climate
Orbiter due to an imperial-metric conversion error.

"Simon Laub" writes:

And Mars Express is up and running! Somehow the media doesn't seem to get
this positive side of the story.

An ancient adage in the news industry is: "Good news does _NOT_ sell papers."


-- Gordon D. Pusch

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