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Space Science

Mars Crater Theory Tries To Explain Missing Beagle 362

Posted by simoniker from the put-face-on-mars'-eye-out dept.
JayBonci writes "CNN is running a piece regarding the failure of the Beagle Mars probe being possibly attributed to a crater landing. It's an interesting story about the variety of forensics being used to try and pick up on the lost craft."
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Mars Crater Theory Tries To Explain Missing Beagle More

Mars Crater Theory Tries To Explain Missing Beagle

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  • Oops (Score:5, Funny)

    by GuyinVA ( 707456 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:01PM (#7830678)
    [homer] D'oh [/homer]

  • It's dead, Jim. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Kiss it goodbye, wait for the next one.

    Manhours are better spent in the future, rather than the past.

  • They need to just tell us the truth (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:04PM (#7830707)
    It was aliens. We know they don't want us poking around their planet and are shooting down our probes. Time to take a hint. I think the Venusians are less hostile anyway.

  • Think.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Shky ( 703024 ) <shkyoleary&gmail,com> on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:05PM (#7830716) Homepage Journal
    No no, see he [google.com] did it.

  • This crater... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:05PM (#7830718) Homepage
    is a 1km diameter crater in the middle of a 70 by 10km square. That means there's about a 1 in 700 chance that Beagle actually landed in it. There's probably, a say, 1 in 10 chance that the landing bags blew up on landing.

    I don't think that's the way to bet somehow.

    • Re:This crater... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rimbo ( 139781 ) <rimbosity@sbcglo[ ].net ['bal' in gap]> on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:11PM (#7830772) Homepage Journal
      Why not consider all possibilities?

      In all likelihood, the Beagle 2's landing made the crater. ;)

    • Re:This crater... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SkArcher ( 676201 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:11PM (#7830775) Journal
      by 'blew up' do you mean 'inflated' or 'exploded'? Your sentence changes meaning depending on which it is read as...

      That said, We don't really have any option but to do high risk probes. If we were only willing to accept a 95% success probability we would never send a probe in the first place.

      With our current level of technology, it is the hard way or not at all.
      • Nor would we have ever landed on the moon, nor entered orbit, nor broken the sound barrier. Space is a risky business, and you have to admire the guts of the guys and gals who sit on top of tens of thousands of tons of high explosives, all in the name of science. Risky probes don't even compare.

        The only thing we risk with probes is cash and time. While I don't want to see it wasted, I agree that we have to be willing to take some serious chances when it comes to space exploration with probes if we ever exp

    • Re:This crater... (Score:5, Informative)

      by aheath ( 628369 ) * <[adam.heath] [at] [comcast.net]> on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:12PM (#7830784)
      The BBC News [bbc.co.uk] web site has a story [bbc.co.uk] with a picture of the crater.
    • That means there's about a 1 in 700 chance that Beagle actually landed in it. There's probably, a say, 1 in 10 chance that the landing bags blew up on landing.

      Or......a 1 in say.....20 chance that the aliens got this one too. They are starting to build quite the collection. :-)

    • Re:This crater... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Otter ( 3800 )
      This crater...is a 1km diameter crater in the middle of a 70 by 10km square. That means there's about a 1 in 700 chance that Beagle actually landed in it.

      I agree with your thesis, but to nitpick: you're assuming equal probability that the probe lands anywhere in the target area. If the crater is really "in the middle", that might significantly elevate the probability of hitting it. (And as long as I'm complaining, 700/(.5^2 * pi) = 892.)

      Agreed on the landing bags, though.

  • Yeah, that makes sense. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Limburgher ( 523006 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:06PM (#7830719) Homepage Journal
    I mean, if it landed hard enough to make a crater, I'm sure it probably stopped working entirely! ;)

  • Cool! (Score:5, Funny)

    by rune.w ( 720113 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:06PM (#7830724)

    Would that make it the longest hole-in-one in History?

    R.

  • The BBC has a report as well (Score:5, Funny)

    by jonbryce ( 703250 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:07PM (#7830732) Homepage
    It says it was a "recently discovered crater". I trust it wasn't caused by the impact from Beagle2 crash-landing.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3354271.stm

    • The crater is about 1Km across. Beagle2 is the size of a dinner plate. The crater Beagle2 would have caused at terminal martial velocity would be much smaller than 1Km - and that is before you consider mass loss due to air friction on the heat shield.

  • My theory is better: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eberlin ( 570874 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:07PM (#7830733) Homepage
    Comic Theory:
    Marvin the Martian just got a new barbecue grill for Christmas.

    Conspiracy Theory:
    World governments chipped in to send the barbecue grill to Marvin so as to appease the martian and prevent a loud Earth-shattering Kaboom!

    Solution:
    Get Duck Dodgers to get our grill back.
  • It takes that much time to lose one of those Mars probes, I mean from earth to mars it still does take more than overnight trip to get to, that people will have time to build new ones before they even know they lost the latest probe...

  • Summary (Score:3, Informative)

    by Cee ( 22717 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:08PM (#7830747)
    From the article:
    While they cannot make out the ship itself, the image shows a 1 km (0.62 mile) wide crater at the center of the 70 by 10 km (43.5 by 6 mile) target area near the Martian equator, Pillinger said. It is possible, although unlikely, that the Beagle may be unable to communicate because it landed in the crater, he said.
    "This would be an incredibly unlucky situation," he said.

    So, according to the theory, the probe didn't make a crater, it landed in one. Just to make things clear.
    • Surely you aren't suggesting that someone might *gasp* post on /. without having read the article first, are you. I am deeply shocked, surely such a thing could never happen!
    • "So, according to the theory, the probe didn't make a crater, it landed in one. Just to make things clear."

      You just know somebody at NASA shouted "nothin but net!"


  • 1) Fell into a crater?! Come on! The landing area was intentionally selected to be free of any obstructions.. It's a goddamn flood plane. An area near the equator specifically selected to be as flat, and as crater-free as possible! The lander is about as likely to be sitting in the bottom of a crater as Michael Jackson's shoulder is likely to be dislocated. Zero.

    2) You get what you pay for. British engineering jokes aside (*cough*)fighterplanesmadeoutofwood(*cough), the airbags they were originally goi

    • Re:Yes, yes, blame it on a crater... Sheesh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mac Degger ( 576336 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:31PM (#7830949) Journal
      *cough*basicsofmaterialscience*cough*usebestmateri alsforjob*cough*

      Although you're spot on about the airbags. Hell, the original pair blew up during pressure testing too!

      But don't overestimate our geographical knowledge of Mars, or underestimate Mars' irregularity. Landing something in an unfamiliar, hostile atmosphere without complete knowlede of the landing zone is difficult. Just have a look at where the Mars Rover was meant to go and where it actually landed for a good idea of the uncertainties involved.
    • Yes, we British did make a twin engined fighter (named the Mosquito) out of wood. The Germans hated the Mosquito, it flew too high and too fast for them to shoot it down. Also, when they did managed to hit one, it generally survived to get back to base.

      Back on topic:
      The budget for the Beagle was very small, and to be honest I think it was way too small to give the probe a decent chance. However, I know of another country with huge budgets for space who often fail too.

      My personal opinion is that t
      • "Yes, we British did make a twin engined fighter (named the Mosquito) out of wood. The Germans hated the Mosquito, it flew too high and too fast for them to shoot it down. Also, when they did managed to hit one, it generally survived to get back to base."

        Here's a picture [famu.org] of the plane that survived being shot down a few times.
    • "1) Fell into a crater?! Come on! The landing area was intentionally selected to be free of any obstructions.. It's a goddamn flood plane."

      You understand it wasn't a human at the controls, right? It had to be pre-programmed in order to get to that state. I'm not the least bit surprised that a.) It missed its target or b.) we weren't aware there was a crater there.

      Get a clue, we're talking about Mars here, not Neverland Ranch.
  • IANAE(ngineer), but if the Beagle cannot send or receive any data, is it programmed it to keep working, e.g. collect soil samples, even if it is cut off from communication, or will it simply sit dead if cannot send or receive signals?

    And if this cost millions(?) of dollars to create, just to get stuck in a hole, how hard would it have been to program it to move around, and try to get somewhere where its communications would work?
    • no link to back this up, but the guy with the beard who was running the project said on TV the other day that Beagle could function on its own for 20 days with no communication.

      I think then it needed to be told to recharge its batteries (i.e. it wouldn't do that automatically and would then die from lack of juice)

    • Re:Is it pre-programmed to do anything? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Lispy ( 136512 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:35PM (#7830975) Homepage
      You seem as you are really unaware so let me explain:
      1. No, it won't start the experiments on it's own afaik. But it will fall into an emergency mode where it sends continously in case it's clock is broken. This might be Mars Express (the ESA-Orbiter) chance to pick up the signal and reset Beagle2.

      2. Beagle was a cheapo mission therefore making it move would have cost a lot of money (even if it only was for the extraweight). It was already cheap and even if it cost millions it was very inexpensive compared to the Pathfinder or the incoming M2K4-Landers from Nasa.

      3. Moving around Mars is hard, even harder when you are an autonomous robot. The biggest "moves" we made up there was the Marsrover wich was basically a small remote controlled car that went as far as 10 meters away from it's landing site (that's my assumption, not sure on the exact distance).

      cu,
      Lispy

      • Re:Is it pre-programmed to do anything? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by wass ( 72082 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @07:36PM (#7831416)
        It was already cheap and even if it cost millions it was very inexpensive compared to the Pathfinder or the incoming M2K4-Landers from Nasa.

        I just want to chime in here a bit.

        People have been saying NASA missions are much more costly than Beagle 2, and therefore NASA is wasteful (this was implied by BBC and later removed from articles after they couldn't contact the craft).

        Pathfinder was a Discovery class mission, and had a budget of $250 million. This is about 4x Beagle's budget of $60 million.

        If anybody wants to say NASA is wasteful by looking at those numbers, they must realize the following

        • Beagle 2 made use of the parachute/airbag landing system that was tested and demonstrated by the Pathfinder team
        • Pathfinder had an autonomous (ie, not controlled realtime by a human) rover while Beagle 2 has a robotic arm.
        • Pathfinder (IIRC) had a high-gain antenna which could communicate w/ Earth while Beagle 2 only has low-gain antenna to communicate with Mars orbiting craft with small hopes of Earth receiver arrays of detecting the craft.
        Beagle 2 may have been cheaper but that doesn't mean it was necessarily more efficiently planned. Pathfinder had more complicated tasks to conduct, and also had more rigorous testing, and thus cost more.

        It's just annoying to see BBC showing nationalistic bias and taking jabs at NASA when we should all really be working together in the exploration process. Especially in areas of science where nationalistic bias shouldn't exist at all.

        Just my two cents.

    • The best information I've come up with from news reports is that the Beagle needed an active signal in order to start charging it's battery.
      I assume this means it would need to have been told where to point the solar panel or something like that. But the news articles I read made it not sound silly, like some control-freak designed it and chose not to use an automatic system. I know it cannot be that simple. But it seems to me, this sort of failure ought to be planned for from the beginning, and the land
  • This is the big boy way of saying "my dog ate my homework"

  • nested craters (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:13PM (#7830790)
    Heh.

    I'm betting on a 1 km wide crater, containing a much smaller beagle-sized crater.

    Either that or there's a Martian museum somewhere on the planet with all our spacecraft in it.

  • Dog days on Mars (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gavin Scott ( 15916 ) * on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:16PM (#7830814)
    This is an exciting time for Mars exporation with two rovers and a Beagle arriving over the period of a month or so.

    Unfortunately the Beagle 2 seems to have followed the Simplified Planetary Local Approach Trajectory that has been so popular with recent Mars landers.

    This is quite depressing, but Beagle 2 was a bit of a shoestring mission from the beginning. There's a reasonable chance that one of the NASA rovers will survive, though this is by no means a sure thing.

    Even ignoring the technical challenge of having everything work perfectly, the landscape of Mars is quite capable of swallowing up one of these landers without a trace. A poorly placed pile of rocks or a deep gully and you're history.

    I think that eventually we will have to send people to Mars, not because of the scientific reasons but just to satisfy our curiosity about what actually happened to all these lost landers.

    G.

    • Re:Dog days on Mars (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )
      I think that eventually we will have to send people to Mars, not because of the scientific reasons but just to satisfy our curiosity about what actually happened to all these lost landers.

      I don't think it would be cheaper to send people to find lost landers. Besides, it might start a domino effect where we have to send yet more people to find out what happened to the first group of people.

      I think that probes need to send more telemetry as they are in the process of landing. I think the new rovers have

  • Space crater theory eh? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:17PM (#7830824)
    or more likely, something went wrong during whatever sequence of actions the probe was supposed to follow, and the only theory involved is Murphy's law.

    It sounds to me like these guys are trying to shift the blame away from the probe, and therefore from them. But really, why should they not admit it's a cockup? there's nothing wrong in admitting a Mars probe failed, it's already quite an achievement to send man-made things there, and it's understood that there are risks involved, and that there's a very real probability that the mission will fail. There's no shame in that.

    These guys tried their best and it didn't work. It's not like they tried to hide their failure of clipping their toenails or something ...
    • But really, why should they not admit it's a cockup? there's nothing wrong in admitting a Mars probe failed, it's already quite an achievement to send man-made things there, and it's understood that there are risks involved, and that there's a very real probability that the mission will fail.

      I suspect a lot of people in power (Democrat and Republican) view NASA as an incredible waste of money that could be better spent buying useless new weapons systems, or funding another impingement on the US Constituti
    • more likely, something went wrong during whatever sequence of actions the probe was supposed to follow, and the only theory involved is Murphy's law.

      More likely? definately. Worth assuming? Definately not.

      I have watched their recent press conference (26th, 27th, 29th Dec). They started out clearly saying that although it is more than likely that the lander crashed, they are only considering the problems that they can actually do something about .

      I think that is the smart way of handling the situati

  • For that matter, how do these guys know that the probe didn't just land on a group of boulders and end up tilted on the side, or flipped over, or stuck in a crevace between two boulders? I thought perhaps they did surveys of the landing site, but after this story, if they didn't even know within miles of where it was landing, I don't know how they could deal with smaller details like rock outcroppings...

    LS

  • Beagle2: fragged. (Score:5, Funny)

    by sheetsda ( 230887 ) <doug@sheets.gmail@com> on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:23PM (#7830880)
    So what they're telling us is essentially:
    Beagle2 is sent into orbit by EU.
    Beagle2 rides EU's rocket.
    Beagle2 cratered.
    Beagle2 disconnected.
    EU: anyone there?

  • Line of sight? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by switcha ( 551514 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:24PM (#7830883)
    It is possible, although unlikely, that the Beagle may be unable to communicate because it landed in the crater, he said.

    Now, my knowledge of astronomy and all related things extends about as far as "Look. The moon!", but if you can get shots of the crater like this, [bbc.co.uk] then how can the probe be "buried" in the crater so far as to not be able to communicate? We're lookin' right into it, there.

    Was that photo from Earth? Was that photo from another probe? Do we never see that view from Earth?

    Seems like the damn thing just broke. Admit it.

    • My feeling is that the thing landed upside down (maybe rolled down the crater wall?) and it doesn't have an antennae pointing up at the sky.
    • If its in the crater, notice the bottom of the crater is in shadow. No way to recharge its batteries (which it does automatically for up to 20 days) if there is no sunlight.
      • That shouldn't be an issue sine mars is moving around sun and therefore there could be some light at least to feed the batteries. But what I guess is that the crater shields off radiocommunication. It might be alive and sending, but we can't hear it, at least not with the radiotelescopes or Mars Odyssey, wich btw was damaged during a sunstorm lately. My hopes are still high when they are trying to use Mars Express Orbiter to look for Beagle2. I keep my fingeers crossed...

    • Re:Line of sight? (Score:3, Informative)

      by kindbud ( 90044 )
      If you had RTFA that you linked to (thanks!), you'd have seen:

      A rough landing on the sides of the crater - which could be as much as 700 metres deep - could have damaged the lander. A crater might also cast a shadow that would make it nearly impossible for Beagle to "power up" using its solar panels.

      And:

      Malin Space Science Systems, which operates the camera aboard Mars Global Surveyor, identified it (the crater) and sent the picture to the Beagle team late on Sunday.

      Lastly, the crater walls might o

  • Bad game plan (Score:4, Insightful)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:25PM (#7830888)
    Isn't the fact that they selected the landing site BEFORE noticing a 1km large crater an indication that they've got the cart before the horse? Perhaps they should try thouroughly mapping the planet from low orbit before landing on it!

  • On the cheap is perhaps not so good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by theolein ( 316044 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:30PM (#7830941) Journal
    I have wondered for a while on the logic and wisdom behind the Beagle mission. I found the idea of sending a 60kg lander without any guidance boosters or rockets, no matter how small, an incredibly bad idea. The probe seperated 3 million kilometers away from the planet and then carried on to mars and atmostpheric entry without any possibility of attitude or course correction. Just think about it, 3 million kilometers and even the smallest of deviations of attitude could have meant the probe arriving in the atmosphere on its side or even upside down.

    I somehow think that it probably arrived with an incorrect entry attitude and then burnt up on entry.

    Perhaps the next time around they'll add a few kilograms to the package for small attitude coreectional motors.
    • The same type of entry is planned for the Hugynes probe en route to Titan courtesy of the Cassini orbiter.

      The other alternative used in the Viking mission is to have the entire spacecraft enter orbit and then separate and de-orbit the lander. Given the entry design, I don't see any real advantage to this for Beagle. In fact, it would just add complexity in the form of additional retrorockets and propellents.

      We have enough experience with direct-descent entries (all lunar returns were this way, as was M

    • That would have made no difference. The critical issue with atmospheric entry is WHERE in the atmosphere it enters, this was controlled very very accurately by pointing Beagle2 before it was released by Mars Express. Once thats done Bagle simply follows newtons laws to its entry point. Beagle 2 was "spun up" before it left Mars express to stabilize its attitude so it would enter the atmosphere with the correct side down but even if this failed it wouldn't really matter all that much. Attude of Beagle on

  • Photos of landing site (Score:4, Informative)

    by flug ( 589009 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:34PM (#7830967)
    This page has several photos of the landing site, showing the weather the day of the landing (it was fine) and also the famous "crater" within the landing zone: Beagle2 landing site photos [beagle2.com]
  • "Hey, you fucked up... you trusted us!" -- Animal House
  • Why can't they just buddy up to NASA and have them send the mars rover out looking for it?

  • Taking a page from the american indians (Score:5, Funny)

    by Papa Legba ( 192550 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @06:49PM (#7831069)
    The martians aren't stupid. They know what the europeans did to the american indians. They are not about to let ANYTHING with a flag, or possibility of a flag, land on their planet.

    Europeans have this anoying habit of showing up, sticking a flag in something, and proclaiming that they have discovered it. This of course iritates the people already there as they felt that maybe they discovered it first. Where upon the europeans point out that they do not have a flag and that they are disqualified on that technicality. Then they shot them. Martians are just doing what the indians should have done to columbuss. Thats not a crater, thats a barbecue pit and the martians are about to have beagle fricassee.

  • to call some animal shelters. I'm sure he'll turn up or wander home in a few days.

  • Murphy's Law of Space Exploration (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sounds like what happened to the Russian Venus lander: [abc.net.au]

    The Soviets used the diamond as a front glass to protect the lens ... once the spacecraft had landed, the lens cap was thrown off ... Each spacecraft also had an experiment called the "Dynamic Penetrometer". The Penetrometer was a spring-loaded arm with a point on the end of it. The point would penetrate deep into soft ground ... but the photographs from Venera 14 show that the point of the penetrometer landed exactly on the lens cap. This is proof t

  • Junk. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Oliver Defacszio ( 550941 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @07:19PM (#7831278)
    Is anyone else struck by the amount of junk that is jettisoned onto Mars by this project? Check out the animations on this page [beagle2.com].

    From these animations, it appears that Mars is now littered with:

    1) the heat-shield from its entry.
    2) the first parachute and associated hardware.
    3) the second, larger parachute and associated hardware.
    4) the "cushioning bags".
    5) some metal pieces as the machine opens.

    I have no idea if Mars' atmosphere is thick enough to thoroughly burn up the myriad other parts that were disengaged during its descent, so that may be a whole raft of other crap in addition to what I have mentioned. Can't we spoil only one planet at a time?

  • Damn, they blew up the lander. I hope I have enough RU's to build a new one!

    Well, sorry folks. I tried to work a Star Control 2 funny in here, but I'm just out of steam.
  • ...smart enough not to land in a crater, but able to stand up and walk out it it did.

    Gee, where could we find something like that??

  • Snoooopy, Snoooopy,
    Why-oh-why did you roam? (come home come home)
    Snoooopy, Snoooopy,
    Come home, Snoopy come home. (come home come home)
    Snoooopy, Snoooopy,
    Where'd you run away to? (come home come home)
    Snoooopy, Snoooopy,
    Everything's wrong without you.
    You split the scene, and nothing is right.
    Good grief, why did you get so uptight?
    Why did you go? We're in a fog.
    Don't you know you're our favorite dog?
    Snoopy come home, Snoopy come home,
    Come home Snoopy, Snoopy come home, come home.
    Snoooopy, Snoooopy,
    Why-oh-why

  • Well... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by herrvinny ( 698679 ) on Monday December 29, 2003 @07:49PM (#7831497)
    The only way that Beagle 2 can achieve its mass goals is by having no redundancy in its electronics whilst relying on a robust and failure-tolerant design.

    (From http://www.beagle2.com/technology/command.htm) [beagle2.com]

    That's not good. Anything electronic failed, forget it...

  • Fried b Solar Flare event? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by chris_sawtell ( 10326 ) * on Tuesday December 30, 2003 @12:25AM (#7832827) Journal
    Well, could Beagle2 have been fried in the same solar flare event which finally did in the Japanese probe?

    Was it possible to test Beagle2 for this while it was still attached to the ESA's Mars Express?

    I have not seen any remarks about this in the mainstream media.

  • Mar Probe Failure Rates. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sbaker ( 47485 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2003 @09:45AM (#7834392) Homepage
    This (and several other) articles have said: Of 34 unmanned American, Soviet and Russian missions to Mars since 1960, two-thirds have ended in failure. Beagle 2 would be only the fourth successful Mars landing if all goes well.

    Am I just being dense?

    If two-thirds of 34 missions ended in failure, wouldn't that mean there were 11 successful missions? How come Beagle 2 would only be the fourth successful one?

    It must be that the first statistic is talking about all kinds of missions (including simple orbiters with no landing component) whilst the second is talking only about landers.

    That being the case, only three out of the eleven successful missions included landers in the first place. I don't believe that as many as nine or ten landers have ever been sent to Mars. This suggests that the failure rate of the landers is not noticably different than the failure rate of relatively simple orbiters.

    What that says to me that the problem is not so much the rigours of descent as of the difficulty of getting electronics and batteries to last throughout launch and the long trip to Mars. I'm betting that these failed landers were dead before they even hit the atmosphere.

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