Beagle 2 Probe Lands; No Signal Received Yet

securitas writes "The BBC reports that Europe's Beagle 2 Mars lander has failed to broadcast its landing confirmation signal. While project leaders are trying to put a brave face on it, the failure is seen as a major setback. The Beagle is out of broadcast range but another contact attempt will be made later today, when they hope a signal will be detected. Another failed Mars mission will solidify Mars' reputation as a spacecraft graveyard. More at icWales and News24."

Mars Missions

[rufey]

From an article on msnbc [msn.com].

Major Mars missions, 1964 to 2004:

1964 U.S. launches Mariner 3, which fails after liftoff.

1964 U.S. launches Mariner 4. First successful Mars fly-by in July 1965. The craft returns the first pictures of the Martian surface.

1964 Soviets launch Zond 2. Mars fly-by. Contact lost in May 1965.

1969 U.S. launches Mariner 6 and 7. The two spacecraft fly by Mars in July and August 1969 and send back images and data.

1971 Soviets launch Mars 2. Orbiter and lander reach Mars in November 1971. Lander crashes but orbiter sends back images and data.

1971 U.S. launches Mariner 8, which fails during liftoff.

1971 U.S. launches Mariner 9. Orbiter reaches Mars in November 1971, provides global mapping of Martian surface and studies atmosphere.

1973 Soviets launch Mars 5. Orbiter reaches Mars in February 1974 and collects data.

1975 U.S. launches Viking 1 and Viking 2. The two orbiter/lander sets reach Mars in 1976. Orbiters image Martian surface. Landers send back images and take surface samples.

1992 U.S. launches Mars Observer. Contact lost with orbiter in August 1993, three days before scheduled insertion into Martian orbit.

1996 U.S. launches Mars Global Surveyor. Orbiter reaches Mars in September 1997 and maps the planet. Still in operation.

1996 Soviets launch Mars 96, which fails after launch and falls back into Earth's atmosphere.

1996 U.S. launches Mars Pathfinder. Lander and rover arrive on Mars in July 1997, in the most-watched space event ever. Lander sends back thousands of images, and Sojourner rover roams the surface, sending back 550 images.

1998 Japan launches Nozomi. Orbiter suffers glitch in December 1998, forcing circuitous course correction. Mission fails in 2003.

1998 U.S. launches Mars Climate Orbiter. Spacecraft destroyed while entering Martian orbit in September 1999.

1999 U.S. launches Mars Polar Lander. Contact lost with lander during descent in December 1999. Two microprobes "hitchhiking" on lander also fail.

2001 U.S. launches Mars Odyssey. Orbiter reaches Mars in October 2001 to detect water and shallow buried ice and study the environment. It can also act as a communications relay for future Mars landers.

2003 European Space Agency launches Mars Express. Orbiter and lander to arrive at Mars in December 2003.

2003 U.S. launches Mars Expedition Rovers. Spirit and Opportunity rovers due to land on Mars in January 2004.

Was front page news?

[StrawberryFrog]

It was on the front page of http://news.bbc.co.uk/ [bbc.co.uk] but is not now.

It seems to have been pushed off the front page into the science/nature page by explosions in Pakistan and China. The UK has historic links with India/Pakistan (and a number of UK'ians have family links in Paikistan) so this was perhaps deemed more pressing. I know the Beagle probe means more to you and me, but not everyone is a nerd.

Control Room Webcast

[tipiyano]

They were webcasting live [capcave.com] throughtout the mission. It was very exciting to follow. Lots of good information in those videos.

And, find out here what options they have to communicate with beagle [beagle2.com]

More Information

[rufey]

All have fairly up-to-date news and status of attempts to contact Beagle 2 and the Mars Express orbiter.

Beagle 2's official [beagle2.com] site.

Space.com's Mars Rover [space.com] section.

European Space Agency's Mars Express [esa.int] website.

Live feeds from esa

[CoreDump01]

If anyone here has problems viewing the videos at
http://esa.capcave.com/esa/marsexpress/
go download the latest Real codec from here
http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs /
and use Xine to play them back.

Did i mention that RealOne/linux is a POS?

Re:Mars Missions

[Anonymous Coward]

"1996 Soviets launch Mars 96"

There wasn't Soviet Union in 1996.

Re:Mars Missions

[BigGerman]

you missed a pair of Soviet probes in 1988:

http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/phenomena/fobo s_mystery_000630.html

The second one disappeared after recording mile-wide oval objects in space ;-)

Speed & Thermals

[rarose]

Two things:
1) The delta-V to get to Venus is much less than to go to Mars. Results is less acceleration load on the probes, also Venus has a much denser atmosphere so that aerodynamic drag devices (drogue chutes, main chutes) are much more effective in controlling touchdown velocity.

2) The thermal cycle of daily heating/cooling is less extreme on Venus than on Mars. Yes, you do have pressure to worry about on Venus... but the thermal cycle is what beats the hell out of electrical connections.

(Note that two of the three successful Mars landers used retrorockets (Viking I & Viking II)... so Beagle was really treadding a very recently blazed trail by using Pathfinder's airbag landing.)

Re:Battery Required to Unfold Solar Array?

[rarose]

Speed? Check.
Density? Nope.

Yes the wind speed on Mars can be huge... but the air is so vapid that it really can't impart much energy to anything.

If you've seen the designs of the Mars drone airplanes, you'll notice they share a lot of design features in common with the U2 spyplane... because both fly in atmospheres where the air is so sparse that the planes need huge wing areas and huge airspeeds just to get a modicum of lift.

Dust storms: no problem

[GPS Pilot]

IAAAE (I am an Aerospace Engineer.)

Martian dust storms are not the big deal many people imagine they are. We're used to hurricanes, able to generate winds so strong that people are literally blown off their feet. And a few months ago we heard soldiers describe sandstorms in Iraq, where grains of sand are whipped against your skin so hard that it stings like hell.

On Mars however, the atmosphere is so thin [netscape.com] that storm effects are quite different. The dust raised by these storms consists of tiny talcum-powder-sized particles. These thin winds would never have the "oomph" to pick up a grain of sand.

And a "raging" 150 mph wind on Mars would not be able to knock a person on his or her butt. It would only carry as much force as a relatively gentle 18 mph Earth wind.

The only possible ill-effect from a dust storm, is that a thin layer of dust might coat the lander's solar panel and reduce its efficiency by a few percent. (Not enough to prevent the lander from phoning home, though.)

Re:Mars Missions

[SkArcher]

Please remember that slashcode won't allow the posting of long text with no whitespace.

Here is a link to The Strange case of Fobos-2 [space.com]

Mars Express is still alive

[Cochonou]

Even if a confirmation of the failure of Beagle 2 would be a huge disappointment, we have to keep in mind that Mars Express has successfully swooped into Mars' orbit.
And even if the most spectacular experiments were to be conducted by Beagle 2, Mars Express carries numerous instruments :
A sub-surface sounding radar which could be used to find ice under the surface,
a high resolution stereo camera to analyse further the topology of Mars,
visible, infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers to analyse the composition of the surface and the atmosphere,
and an "Energetic Neutral Atoms Analyser" to quantify the interactions between solar winds and martian atmosphere.

Rejoice ! We and scientists will still get our christmas present !

Here's the link ...

[bitsformoney]

http://www.siam.org/siamnews/general/ariane.htm [siam.org]

Re:They knew about the storm?

[C32]

As far as I can tell, everything was preprogrammed and designed specifically for the insertion which occurred, therefore they couldn't have done anything regardless of what weather conditions are right now.

Re:Conspiracy Theroy anyone?

[Tablizer]

I dunno. Russians built about fifteen venera probes/landers to go to venus. they had nowhere NEAR the failures we've had now.

Soviet landers had bad luck on Mars also. Venus is easier to land on because its super-thick atmosphere enables the probe to "float" to a landing practically. It would almost be like the earth's atmosphere gradually blending into the ocean so that a probe would gradually become a submarine more or less. The Venus probes thus did not need as sophisticated landing sequences. Surviving the heat of Venus is the hard part, not the landing. Plus, it seems Soviet success on Venus prompted further Venus probes on their part. They gave up on Mars, one could say.

Re:Waiting for more data...

[CmdrGravy]

By the look of it the Mars Odyssey was supposed to pick up a signal this morning and then re-transmit it back to Earth a few hours later so I guess it's possible it's a problem with the receiving end of things than the transmission.

I think Beage 2 has a very low powered transmitter so I don't know how hard/easy that would be for an orbiter to pick up on.

When the Jodrell bank dish comes into line later on this evening seems a much more definate indication of whether the landing has failed or not.

I hope it has been a success but even if the worst has happened it was still worth a shot and no doubt there have been a lot of valuable lessons during the whole project than would have been learned if we hadn't even attempted it.

Spacecraft Land Better With a Pilot

[reallocate]

Just shows how diffifult it is to land something on another planet when there's no crew aboard.

Come to think of it, odds are the Apollo 11 lander would have crashed if pilots had not been onboard. If memory serves, the designated landing spot wasn't appropriate, so Armstrong flew the thing manually to another spot.

Contents of story is wrong

[angel'o'sphere]

Well,

likely BBC exagerate or the story poster did.
Beagle has entered the atmossphere ... about the touch down we do not know so far. The reason is: the first craft able to pick up Beagel hail signal "by chance" was Mars Odyssey. Mars Odyssey did not pick up a signal.

Thats what we know.

So. The plan is that Mars Express, the mothership of Beagel, will make contact to Beagle TODAY -- not 20 hours before!! -- around 22:40 GMT. After 22:40 GMT we will know if Beagle touched down successfully.

For more information look at: www.esa.int, and follow the link to the web stream http://esa.capcave.com/esa/marsexpress/

However, making contact to Beagle is not the primary goal right now. Mars express is supposed to perform two important manouvers first: Appogee reduction(currently we are in a 10 day orbit), to get the orbit more circular instead of a high ellipse, and second: an orbit inclination change manouver to get the currently equatorial orbit inot a polar orbit.

Its well possible(I dont know the orbit data) that after the orbit is polar it will take several days until Mars Express is in an orbit position to pick up Beagels signals.

After the craft is in polar orbit, it will do about 9 further manouvers to reduce its 100,000 km orbit into a 11,000 km orbit. Then .. finally .. it is in survey orbit for Mars and in a regular contact with Beagle.

angel'o'sphere

Re:Speed & Thermals

[angel'o'sphere]

2) The thermal cycle of daily heating/cooling is less extreme


I doubt that :-) Venus has a very LOOOoooooonnng day. About 243 days :-) That means 121 days "night" and 122 days "sunshine".

On teh sunny sie Venus has about 400 degrees centigrade ground temperature ... Mars has on the sunny side about - 20 degrees centigrade, sometimes higher.

With Venus having a night temperature of ... hu hom, I estimate .. 100 degrees centigrade, we have a emperature difference on Venus of 300 degrees. Whereas on Mars the temperature difference is less than 110 degrees.

Google a bit or take this two links as reference :-)
http://stardate.org/resources/ssguide/venus.h tml
and http://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/resources/ mars_data-information/temperature_overview.html

Regards,
angel'o'sphere

Re:Tough Christmas

[nutznboltz]

The caption for the pic here [nasa.gov] says that the surveyor moon lander is in a circle but it's not. To see the surveyor get the TIFF high-res image and look at the bottom of that image for a small white "boomerang". The "boomerang" is two of the three legs of the lander, the third is obscured by a black shadow cast by the solar panels.

Re:Obviously The Viking Landings Were Hoaxes

[*SpOoNdRiFt*]

Many lives were sacrificed to get the United States to the moon. Your claim is not justified and very offensive. The Apollo program was/is an engineering marvel that should be embraced by all mankind. Here [badastronomy.com] are some rebuttals to your feeble claim of a moon hoax.

Re:Beagle 2 damaged by dust storm?

[deglr6328]

This has been said before in some above posts but obviously needs to be said again, BEAGLE WAS NOT IN ANY DANGER FROM THE DUST STORM ON MARS. The dust storm which started on ~ December 14th. has been winding down (look at the Mars Global Surveyor's Thermal Emission Spectrometer [asu.edu] images to see current atmospheric dust levels) in the past week and was nowhere near the beagle 2 landing site for most of its duration anyway. Anyway, the USSR's Mars 3 Lander probe is thought to have probably never even transmitted anything from the surface at all. It's suspected that they just wanted to be the first to claim 'first mars surface transmission' and made up the story [nasa.gov] that the probe actually transmitted a picture which just happened to be nearly completely black(how convienient). I hope Beagle 2 is still alive and on the surface but if it did die it was almost certainly a failure of one of the many(non-redundant to save mass)entry descent and landing system devices, and not a dust storm which is at fault.

Here's the photo of the alleged spacecraft

[Von Rex]

My contribution to this episode of the Tin Foil Hat Theater:

The article mentioned above [demon.co.uk], about strange theories behind the disappearance of the Russian Phobos 2 probe, mentions a "highly secret" photo that was the last image taken by this probe. The article speculates it's a shot of the spacecraft that destroyed the probe. I found the picture they're talking about [homestead.com].

If this is a spacecraft it would be about 20 km long, like a Culture GSV in the Iain Banks novels. More likely it's just a streak in an image created by a failing instrument.

It's funny though, there's a whole lot of web pages out there speculating that Phobos is an alien base or spacecraft. It seems to be a nexus for a whole lot of UFO speculation.