Beagle 2 Failure Theories 254
Dan East writes "New Scientist has an article discussing the failure of ESA's Beagle 2 Lander. Theories as to why the landing failed include thinner than expected upper atmosphere, extreme atmospheric temperature fluctuations, and possible physical damage to Beagle 2 seen in an image acquired immediately after it separated from Mars Express. Recent data acquired by Mars Express, as well as NASA's Mars Rovers, are helping direct investigations into the failure. So far only around half of Beagle 2's landing ellipse has been imaged in an attempt to locate remnants of the lander. USA Today is also running an AP story on these latest theories."
Re:Unrelated Question (Score:2, Informative)
The first thing that springs to mind is that any kind of wiper wiping dust across could scratch the panels
Wipers are also one more (well, more than one) mechanical part to go wrong, and also add weight.
Perhaps radiation, and other things would limit the life of the rover to just over 3 months and the wipers were deemed unnecessary. Basically what you're saying in the last paragraph.
The most likely scenario is that the scientists and engineers, with much more knowledge and experience in this type of thing know what they're doing and have determined for some reason wipers aren't a possibility. I highly doubt it's something they've overlooked.
Re:Unrelated Question (Score:5, Informative)
-brandon
It's not just the dust (Score:5, Informative)
The dust on the solar panels appears to be complicated by the fact that the batteries "lose capactity" and (probably most importantly) the sun moves past the latitude where the rover is located. Just like days get shorter in the winter...
I guess it doesn't matter if your solar panels are clean if they aren't being exposed to the sun for an appreciable length of time.
All of this was grossly overinterpreted from an article lean on details... http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/tl_surface
Re:Unrelated Question (Score:2, Informative)
The curator said that "five hundred people" before me had asked the same question
I'm hoping the next rover (or the next one to built) will sport some elegant new hack suggested by some Jane Average.
Re:Unrelated Question (Score:5, Informative)
Well, what do you expect. They didnt fully test (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Unrelated Question (Score:5, Informative)
It's actually a FAQ.
I suggest you read
This [discovery.com]
and this [sorrab.com]
Re:Unrelated Question (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, I looked up how Pathfinder died, and it looks like the lifespan on the rover there was dictated by how many day/night temperature changes the electronics could take. I'm guessing that they just can't get a circuit board to put up with that, so everything else only has to last as long as a bit of solder that somebody's popping in and out of a freezer every 12 hours.
Re:Money (Score:4, Informative)
Possible sighting of Beagle probe (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Money (Score:3, Informative)
The beagle2 cost about $60 million.
Opportunity and Spirit cost $820 million dollars.
>We also spent over twice as much as they did.
Nope, about 12 to 14x what the US spent.
Re:Has the atmosphere DRASTICALLY changed in 20 yr (Score:2, Informative)
May have been spotted (Score:4, Informative)
==================
Possible sighting of Beagle probe
Monday, March 8, 2004 Posted: 6:43 PM EST (2343 GMT)
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Beagle 2, the British space probe which disappeared as it descended towards Mars, may have been spotted on the surface of the Red Planet, scientists say.
No signal has been received from the craft since it was due to land on Christmas Day last year, despite various attempts by Mars orbiters and telescopes on Earth to make contact.
But photographic images of the area where Beagle 2 was to have come down show four bright spots, dubbed a "string of pearls" by scientists, which may be the remains of the probe.
"It could be the lander with its air bags and parachute," said Lutz Richter from the German Aerospace Center, who helped plan the Beagle 2 project as part of Europe's first solo mission to another planet.
According to CNN (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Unrelated Question (Score:5, Informative)
This might be a viable option -- but then again it's possible that the sheets could tear or jam in such a way as to produce a high degree of reflection and significantly reduced array efficiency. It's just another point of failure.
(2) Pick the dust up. They make simple electrostatic floor cleaning brushes here on earth (as seen on TV) that pick up dust like nobody's business
Possible -- but it would also require the creation of a high-voltage charge -- and the other sensitive electronics onboard may not like that kind of charge. The high levels of ionizing radiation on the surface of Mars may also affect the operation of such devices.
(4) Gently blow atmospheric air across them. Small motor, high speed fan, nozzle directing the air across the surface. Probably won't work well on Mars with the thin atmosphere
Wouldn't even work on earth with its comparitively dense atmosphere. Haven't you noticed that even if you take a dusty car for a high-speed run at 100mph or greater, it's still covered in dust when you stop? Do a google on "boundary layer" and "laminar flow" to find out why this method won't work with very small dust particles.
(5) The system that deploys the solar panels could be designed so that the action of deploying them passes the panels past the cleaning apparatus. This, of course, favors designs that have the panels slide open - or unroll as with the international space station
It would not be a good idea to fold and unfold the panels any more than is absolutely necessary (ie: do it only once). Even the best-designed mechanism always suffers the possibility of jamming when used in a very dusty environment -- especially if there's also a high degree of thermal cycling. From memory, at least one of the planetary probes lost the use of a camera (or was it an antenna array?) due to such jamming. To open and close the solar arrays on a regular schedule would significantly increase the probability of failure and that failure would likely be catastrophic to the mission.
I don't understand how people are complaining about how the batteries are slowly decaying or that the solar day length is decreasing with the onset of winter. If it even takes three days to recharge in the winter - and you can only do 1/2 the work in a regular day: you'd still have a working probe as opposed to not having a working probe. If it can survive long enough, you'd get around to summer again
I suspect that the extremely low temperatures encountered on Mars would fatally damage the battery packs if they weren't kept warm. Once the amount of energy available during the martian winter day falls below the level required to maintain the battery temperature overnight -- the cells would be irreversibly damaged.
My Li-Ion cell phone battery has been discharged and recharged hundreds of times over the course of four years - and it still holds a usable charge. I thought that airgel was supposed to solve the temperature problem for the electronics (they can easily build spacecraft where the internal temperature of the electronics is maintained at whatever you want)
There is no such thing as "perfect" insulation so energy has to be expended overnight to keep the critical components (batteries, etc) from being damaged by freezing. As mentioned above, once the energy extracted during the daytime becomes insufficient to provide this heat -- the mission is over.
Next rover not solar powered (Score:3, Informative)
I'm hoping the next rover (or the next one to built) will sport some elegant new hack suggested by some Jane Average.
The next planned Mars rover is the Mars Science Laboratory [space.com] to be launched in 2009. It will be five times larger than the current rovers and will be powered by a plutonium RTG, giving it at least a year, probably more, of operation. Check out the link for details on its proposed landing method. Very cool.
Re:Unrelated Question (Score:4, Informative)
The problem with such measures is that you will need some kind of special coating on top of the panels (either anti-static, or conducting to hold the charge) and that is going to result in less efficient panels.
Jeroen
Re:Conversions... (Score:2, Informative)
A small point, but you mean the Imperial system (which was used by the US). England uses the Metric system for almost everything. (Transport law is still mostly in miles-per-hour though)
Re:May have been spotted (Score:2, Informative)
Link [cnn.com].
Webcase by Pillinger on beagle failure (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Has the atmosphere DRASTICALLY changed in 20 yr (Score:3, Informative)
As Mars Express closed in on the planet, astronomers noticed a large dust storm building on the planet. Martian storms are unusual in that they markedly heat the atmosphere. As dust particles are swept up into the air, they absorb solar radiation and radiate heat - warming the atmosphere, increasing the force of the wind and so raising more dust. As the air warms, it expands and pressure drops.
All three landers were committed to landing on Mars at a particular time from the moment they blasted off. Unlike Viking, which could sit in orbit and wait for ideal conditions, they had to land directly. The two NASA landers had a larger safety margin and made it to the surface, Beagle 2 had almost none and may simply have landed too fast.
Unfortunately having a stand-off orbiter is expensive in terms of weight and neither the Delta IV nor the Soyuz/Fregat could have sent a useful orbiter and a lander to Mars. The alternative would have been to use the much bigger Titan IV or Proton rockets.
And this isn't the first time a Mars lander has been affected by adverse weather, the Soviet Union's Mars 3 became the first craft to land on Mars in 1971. It touched down in the midst of a dust storm and returned data for only 20 seconds before mysteriously falling silent. The Soviets believed that its antenna had been knocked out of alignment by the storms.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Re:But isn't most dust on mars magnetic? (Score:3, Informative)