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Space Science

Mars Express launch today 183

Posted by Hemos from the send-it-up-there dept.
mikerich writes "The European Space Agency and the Russian Space Agency will launch the Mars Express spaceprobe today using a Soyuz-Fregat out of Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Launch is scheduled for 17.45 UT (18.45 BST), so far all preparations have gone smoothly and the forecast is excellent. The launch will be streamed over the Web by ESA. Mars Express consists of two components, a large Martian orbiter which will be searching for sub-surface water and studying the Martian atmosphere. Its seven science packages have been built by teams from Europe, Russia, the United States, Japan, and China. Amongst the science packages is a radar for studying geological structures. Mars Express will map most of the planet in high-resolution colour stereoscopic 3D and perform a high-resolution mineralogical survey of the planet. Mars Express is also carrying the tiny Beagle 2 lander designed by a team led by Professor Colin Pillinger of the Open University. Beagle 2 is Britain's first planetary space probe and designed specifically to look for life using the most advanced techniques currently available. For those in the UK, the story of Beagle 2 is being told on BBC 2 on Monday 2nd June at 23:20." Dan B. writes "The BBC is running an article on the European 'Mars Express', Europe's first interplanetary rocket. This is the first of three probes heading to the Red Planet this Summer, as it nears it's closest point from the Earth in thousands of years."
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Mars Express launch today More

Mars Express launch today

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  • Mars... (Score:4, Funny)

    by SpanishInquisition ( 127269 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @06:50AM (#6094337) Homepage Journal
    That's so 1976...

  • Beagle, ESA and .uk (Score:5, Insightful)

    by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @06:55AM (#6094349)
    I wish the Beagle 2 in particular the very best of luck. Britain has never really pulled its weight in ESA, leaving France, Germany and Italy to pay for most things; a successful Mars lander bearing the Union flag could well change all that. Mars Express as a whole was done on a small budget, and Beagle was hacked together from the money that could be found down the back of the national sofa; if they succeed, imagine what could be achieved with some _real_ money...

    • Re:Beagle, ESA and .uk (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Jez ( 2703 ) <jez@jezuk.co.uk> on Monday June 02, 2003 @07:03AM (#6094378) Homepage
      Colin Pillinger was one of the originators of the "faster, cheaper, better" way of developing space probes. He had to be, because there's just no way that ESA could follow the NASA model of ever bigger, more expensive projects. I worked in his lab, back when Beagle2 and Cassini were just starting to be talked about. 2003 seemed so far off. It's amazing that it's actually here, and built, and ready to go.
      • Hi Jez - True, Beagle 2 is kind've "Better, Faster, Cheaper", but that's more because it's a U.K. mission. Looking at Mars Express, Venus Express and Bepi-Columbo, compared with other planetary missions at present, and I'd say that ESA are going in for bigger missions than just about anyone else at present. Fingers crossed for tonight. -Karl

        • Re:Beagle, ESA and .uk (Score:3, Interesting)

          by j-b0y ( 449975 )
          Actually, they're aimed at being much cheaper, Rosetta, Mars Express and Venus Express use/will use the same platform and control system, Rosetta and Mars Express share the same Flight Control Team and support staff.

          This may not sound like a big deal, but it can really cut down on the cost

          • > Rosetta, Mars Express and Venus Express use/will use the same platform and control system, Rosetta and Mars Express share the same Flight Control Team and support staff.
            >
            >This may not sound like a big deal, but it can really cut down on the cost

            Wonder if NASA ever heard of "economies of scale".

            *sigh*

          • Rosetta, Mars Express and Venus Express [...]

            Wait, where's Planet Express? Damn I love Futurama...

    • British science is impressive in how much it gets done with very little money. Most British scientists working on big budget projects have probably already moved to the US or other countries, and the people who are left are experts at making a lot out of very little.

      But just because British scientists are very frugal doesn't mean that a little bit of additional money will turn into a huge scientific return. A frugal scientist with twice as much funding may not be any more productive than a frugal scienti

      • Re:Beagle, ESA and .uk (Score:5, Interesting)

        by aallan ( 68633 ) <alasdair@babilim[ ].uk ['.co' in gap]> on Monday June 02, 2003 @08:54AM (#6094915) Homepage

        A frugal scientist with twice as much funding may not be any more productive than a frugal scientist with his current budget.

        Being a frugal British scientist working on a a tight budget I can tell you that while this may be true in some cases, just taking the stress of being so close to the wire away could mean that some people can get more science done. Heck I just blew the last three weeks writing grant proposals, very little science (or anything else, including sleep) got done during that time. For this I got a PhD?

        Al.

        • Re:Beagle, ESA and .uk (Score:3, Interesting)

          by corleth ( 118672 )
          As someone based in the UK but having worked in the US from time to time, I have to say that my US colleagues, at least in planetary science, spend more time writing research proposals than we do. Their proposals are simply much longer and more in-depth than UK ones; more akin to EC Framework projects. That being said, their proposals more likely to get funded, and funded well.

          Agreed about the tight budget thing though. It would be nice, just for once, to have a budget that allowed me to just buy, for exa

    • Actually, the reason why Mars Express is being launched was the fact the highly ambitious Mars 96 probe (which carried many of the same experiments that Mars Express carries) failed due to a rocket booster upper stage failure.

      This is why Mars Express is a much smaller spacecraft, small enough to rely on the well-proven launch rocket that carries the Soyuz spacecraft to orbit.

    • In other words (Score:3, Funny)

      by 2names ( 531755 )
      so far all preparations have gone smoothly and the forecast is excellent.

      Translation: "Our Secret Soviet Weather control machine is working perfectly. Now, where are Moose and Squirrel?"

  • If anything goes wrong... (Score:4, Funny)

    by jabbadabbadoo ( 599681 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @06:55AM (#6094351)
    ...just call SOS Beagles [sosbeagles.org]

    Let's hope the ESA engineers haven't been barkin' up the wrong tree.

  • The search (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @06:56AM (#6094353)
    Beagle 2 is Britain's first planetary space probe and designed specifically to look for life using the most advanced techniques currently available.

    In the best British tradition the probe will lay out a tea set and some cucumber sandwiches to attract alien lifeforms.

    • Re:The search (Score:5, Funny)

      by AndrewHowe ( 60826 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @06:58AM (#6094362)
      Let's hope the aliens are not cucumber-like.

    • Re:The search (Score:4, Funny)

      by mark2003 ( 632879 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @07:22AM (#6094453)
      In the best British tradition the probe will lay out a tea set and some cucumber sandwiches to attract alien lifeforms.

      Actually in the best British tradition, the probe will be wearing an England/Millwall/Arsenal shirt, will be p*ssed out of it's mind and will start broadcasting threatening messages to any lifeform it detects for "looking at it funny".

      We are not going to Mars just to find life but to kick the living daylights out of it...

      • Re:The search (Score:3, Funny)

        by sane? ( 179855 )
        Well...
        1. The colour test pattern of the Beagle 2 has been created by the artist Damien Hurst.
        2. Damien was one member of the joke band 'Fat Les', famous for their song 'Vindaloo'
        3. Said song was famous for doing very well on the terraces at a previous excusion of the England football team into foreign parts.

        So, not too far off the mark.

        Now all we need is a Mars excusion robot shaped like a ball, with appropriately shaped black solar cells positioned over its surface and, BINGO! - Mars football...

      • ...and NASA's Mars Rovers will spend the first week trying to find each other. Once they have found each other, the rest of the mission will be characterised my lots of exclamations of "Gee Honey, Isn't it just quaint!"
        RB
    • In the best British tradition the probe will lay out a tea set and some cucumber sandwiches to attract alien lifeforms.

      And if said aliens turn out to be hostile, all those cricket bats and football hooligans can finally come in handy.

      • And if said aliens turn out to be hostile, all those cricket bats and football hooligans can finally come in handy.

        No, we actually use baseball bats, they're more suitable. Nobody in Britain plays baseball but every sports shop has a good selection of baseball bats despite that.

    • Ah, but I notice Colin Pillinger got his PhD in Wales.

      Presumably he's interested in looking for coal on Mars, but watch out for vacuum leeks...

    • rubbish, us british are all too apathetic to care about anythi..oh i cant be bothere

    • Re:The search (Score:4, Funny)

      by Epsillon ( 608775 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @03:03PM (#6098202) Journal

      In the best British tradition the probe will lay out a tea set and some cucumber sandwiches to attract alien lifeforms.

      No, with the thin Martian atmosphere the water would boil at too low a temperature, so you can't make a decent cup of tea on Mars. Frightfully important to make a good first impression on the blighters, so we sent it up with some of our real ale instead. Wouldn't want them to get ticked off for sending awful tasting stuff - like your beer - wot! :o)

  • We are getting so much closer now... (Score:3, Funny)

    by WwWonka ( 545303 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @06:57AM (#6094360)
    ...to hearing Tom Brokaw proudly state that "Nasa has just sent a probe to Uranus!"

  • watch the launch, live (Score:3, Informative)

    by dj_paulgibbs ( 619622 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @07:01AM (#6094370)
    Not sure if this is a good idea in regards to future slashdotting, but there is going to be a webcam [capcave.com] showing the proceedings.

  • Damn it.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by botzi ( 673768 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @07:06AM (#6094387)
    I was going to watch the launching from the ESA site....
    Now with the link to the streaming page published on /. I may simply forgot about it:-/

  • But is the Beagle Horny? (Score:3, Funny)

    by krystal_blade ( 188089 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @07:06AM (#6094392)
    This is the first of three probes heading to the Red Planet this Summer, as it nears it's closest point from the Earth in thousands of years

    People of Earth, hear us. We, the people of mars, grow tired of your repetetive probings!

    You must cease and desist with this probing, especially with one named after a dog. (We've watched what your dogs do on your planet, and have no wish to undergo the same "leg" treatment.)

    And you must stop this photography of our martian mounds. This blatant harrassment will only lead to a hostile relationship between us.

    Perhaps with some beating, and bondage thrown in...

    krystal_blade... No martians were harmed during the posting of this comment....
  • One way tickets start at 2,000,000,000 Euros. Get them while they last.

  • Most intense period of planetary exploration ever (Score:5, Informative)

    by corleth ( 118672 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @07:27AM (#6094469)
    Not only are Mars Express and Beagle 2 going to be joined by two NASA landers [nasa.gov], but also the Japanese orbiter, Nozomi [isas.ac.jp]. These five missions will complement NASA's Mars Global Surveyor [nasa.gov], launched in 1997, and Mars Odyssey [nasa.gov], launched in 2001, which are still returning excellent data of the surface of Mars from orbit. This marks not only the beginning of the most intensive period of study of Mars in the history of space exploration, but also the start of a planetary science renaissance.

    In addition to these missions, also keep an eye on the NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan, arriving later this year, as well as ESA's SMART-1 mission to the moon to be launched soon. Future plans include NASA's Mercury Messenger [jhuapl.edu], and ESA's Venus Express [esa.int] and Bepi-Columbo [esa.int].

  • Alternative to web broadcast (Score:5, Informative)

    by corleth ( 118672 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @07:31AM (#6094478)
    If you have access to Astra 2C satellite reception equipment, I suggest that you link directly in to the ESA television broadcast. The quality should be better and it might help relieve the slashdot effect. The details are as follows:

    • Satellite:
    • Astra 2C at 19 degrees East
      Reception frequency: 10832 MHz
      Polarisation: Horizontal
      Symbol rate: 22 Msymb/s
      FEC: 5/6
      Service ID: 61950
      Service name: ESA
      TXT: none
      Start of launch transmission: 19:15 CEST (17:15 GMT/UT)
  • Martian Overlord: What happen?
    Engineering Drone: Somebody set up us three probes.
    Signals Drone: We get signal.
    Martian Overlord: What!
    Signals Drone: Main screen turn on.
    Martian Overlord: It's You !!
    Beagle: How are you gentlemen !!
    Beagle: All your base are belong to us probes.
    Beagle: You are on the way to destruction.
    Martian Overlord: What you say !!
    Beagle: You have no chance to survive make your time.
    Beagle: HA HA HA HA .... Bzzzt Chirp!
    Martian Overlord: Take off every 'zig'!!
    Martian Overlord: You know what
  • I'm serious here.

    I know many of you hate us, and have even wished us ill-will recently, but rest assured, I don't hate you, and I wish you the best of luck in this endeavor.

    New York, out...

    • Re:Good luck Europe! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @08:25AM (#6094736)
      Many of us _hate_ you? Whatever gave you that idea?

      It is certainly true many Europeans are not major fans of your current leadership, but frankly most of us hope you will eventually regain your senses and vote someone more sensible into the white house.

      I'm disturbed that you felt you needed to post this. I didn't realize American perception of Europe can be so wrong. What do you think of when someone mentions Europe?

      • You say America needs to "regain its senses" and vote for a new president. To answer your question... this is why Americans feel that Europeans hate us. By stating, even metaphorically, that by Americans electing officials that you disagree with means that we have some sort of mental disability (and for the record, I voted for Gore) explains why we Americans often feel that you hate us.

        France almost elected Le Pen (a "radical"), and Austria elected a radical too, but that doesn't mean that the country is
        • Sorry, but criticism does not equal hatred. I offer criticism, but not hatred. For that matter, so did the French government when it rejected the war in Iraq: no hatred, just criticism.

          As for France and Austria, they were extremely foolish (in the case of France) and irresponsible (in the case of Austria) to elect Le Pen (almost) and Haider. And that too is criticism, rather than hatred.

      • Many of us _hate_ you? Whatever gave you that idea?

        Gee, I don't know. . . maybe all of the snotty Europeans posting about how we deserved the WTC attack? Or the ones who feel the need to remind us about American imperialism in every other thread (conveniently ignoring the far worse effects of European imperialism)? Or the ones who like to tell me I'm living in a police state? The level of contempt I see is appalling. I've known and worked with a number of Europeans, and even though they'd come to the
        • maybe all of the snotty Europeans posting about how we deserved the WTC attack? Or the ones who feel the need to remind us about American imperialism in every other thread (conveniently ignoring the far worse effects of European imperialism)?

          I'd challenge you to find any normal European who said that the US deserved 11/9. I'd also challenge you to find a European who would justify historic European imperialism and who would support it now. The fact that most Brits were not behind their own government in i
        • I was not going to enter this pan global slanging match but i have decided to lay down my 2 cents worth (or euros or pence or whatever)

          The Europeans are as bad as the Americans except they dont get on the high horse about unlike the post that this is attached to....

          it is also unfair to compare schroeder to bush, the reasons why the europeans hate bush is he is a war mongering idiot that could not outwit a yoghurt, but for the same reason people hate blair becuase he is a sycophantic war mongering manipula
        • If I were to move, I'd live in one of the former Russian colonies (Czech Republic would be nice), where they haven't been free long enough to become arrogant, and where American pop culture hasn't penetrated very far.

          well i can tell you that you're not going to find what you're looking for. i moved to Saint Petersburg, Russia 3 months ago (born and raised in Calfornia). when i'm in a busy public place, i don't dare utter a single english word in fear that i will be jumped immediately.

          hell, even the Mac
        • (conveniently ignoring the far worse effects of European imperialism)?

          As the only Brit working a PhD group of very wide ranging ethnisity, i have on a number of occasions had the oportunity to argue the pros and cons of european (especially British) imperialism.

          Overall the general conclusion that is generally reached is that although we did some pretty naughty things (slavery, cultural clensing, resourse stealing, etc). The beneficial effects conveyed to the countries, in the long run, allowed the countr

    • Re:Good luck Europe! (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      We don't hate Americans, just the ppl who voted that )*()@(#$(@#*$ moron into the White House
    • I'm a european (although not sure whether I'm from new or old Europe), and I can say as much that I do not hate americans. Some people do, but I think that's stupid. I can say that I strongly dislike your current leader, but that doesn't mean I hate you all or your entire nation. I believe that most americans do not hate Europe, either. There are differences between EU and USA, but we don't have to let those differences cause unnecessary conflicts, fuelled by misconceptions and propaganda and catchy slogans
      • Thank you for a very intelligent and mature response. Disagreeing with a leader (whether your own or foreign) does not mean that you have to hate that country, or resort to immature name calling like "moron," "retard," etc. (which makes THE INSULTER seem unintelligent). The only thing I don't 100% agree with you (and again, disagreeing is all good) is that you think only "some" Europeans hate America. That may in fact be the case - it may truly be. However, until I meet a majority of Europeans that don'
        • Saying that your country is behaving in an Imperialistic manner does not mean people hate you - it is simply a statement of opinion that many people believe describes the US's current foreign policy. The honest truth is that virtually all Europeans are afraid of what the US will do next - we all thought that post cold war we had moved into a world where nations solved their problems through diplomacy and co-oporation, we did not expect the US to start threatening other countries to protect it's own interest
          • This whole argument never ceases to amaze me. We were in a state of war against Iraq. Sealed with a cease-fire agreement. Violated by Iraq multiple times during it's 12 year duration. I can't say they deserved it, but to say we unilaterally went and invaded a country simply because we felt like it is a farce.

            The blustering about Syria is a bit disturbing, but no worse than Bush's "Axis of Evil" stupidity. I'm not sure what went wrong between the Clinton and Bush PR regimes, but I think they should sto

        • However, until I meet a majority of Europeans that don't openly say they hate us, we're imperialistic, we deserved 9/11, we're shallow and ignorant, then I will have to think that the majority of Europeans truly do hate us. Consider it my own personal straw poll.

          I'll bite. (Brit living in the US).

          "they hate us"

          Nope, never met an individual American that I've hated. I have mixed feelings about America as a as a political entity, but (a) that's a long way from hate, and (b) also true for any country

    • Well, living in Germany I can tell you that there are people who shake their heads about current US foreign politics but that doesn't make us "hate" you.

      How could we hate the country that helped to remove Hitler? How could we hate the country that spent a lot of money rebuilding the German economy after the war? There has been a history of friendship between the US and Germany until less than 4 years ago and this will not change so fast.

      Please try to ignore the occassional strong german leftist trying to
  • I didn't know this at first, so I thought it might help. The launch time is 12:15 pm in EST. Very soon now.
  • It's amazing what all these first world countries can do. Wish my country was still in the space business.

  • Success! (Score:3, Informative)

    by corleth ( 118672 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @02:00PM (#6097481)
    The launch went fine. MEx is in Earth orbit. The first major maneuver will be at 20:15 GMT/UT.
  • It took off exactly on time. Fingers crossed that all the other difficult stages in its voyage go as smoothly.


    One notable cock-up was the UK's ITN news channel which had been advertising it's live coverage of the launch all day and just as it happened it cut to a commerical break. Professional journalism indeed. Fortunately the other stations also covered it.

  • The ESA website states that "Beagle 2 will land in an equatorial region that was probably flooded in the past, and where traces of life may have been preserved."
    What I wonder is how likely these areas actually were flooded.
    I know they say there is a fair amount of forzen water on mars but other than that and the fact it "looks" like surface shaped by water, do they have any other proof of this? I am not trying to say that there were no oceans, im just wondering how they came up with "probably". I thought
  • The link for Soyuz-Fregat is
    http://www.orbireport.com/Launchers/Soyuz_U-Fregat / [orbireport.com].
    Interestingly enough, it's a new generation of launchers (well, an incremental upgrade :)
    that IIRC were first used in 2000.

    -DVK
  • BBC update here [bbc.co.uk] - or for the next day or so it'll be on the news.bbc.com front page.

    Textbook launch - well, that's what you expect from Soyuz - and now the departure from Earth orbit has succeeded as well.

    Fingers crossed. Hopefully there will be some wide smiles round about Christmas this year when we hear that "The Beagle has landed". (No offense whatever intended to the US lunar program: I saw the tv broadcasts of the first landing in the early hours of the morning when I was still at university.)

  • User manual... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ctid ( 449118 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @05:45PM (#6100330) Homepage
    I hope there are still some people reading, but not enough to slashdot this site. I was mooching around the Beagle 2 mission site and found a link to Starsem, the Russian company that provided the launcher. They have the user manual [starsem.com] for the Soyuz-Fregat launcher online!! How cool is that? Caution, it's an 8MB download.

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