Beagle 2 Official Inquiry Released

smasch writes "The ESA/UK Commission of Inquiry into Beagle 2 has released their report (PDF) on why the Mars lander Beagle 2 failed. While the report does not name a single cause for the failure, it does name several problems including the lack of funding, lack of margin in the design, and treating Beagle 2 as a scientific instrument rather than as a spacecraft. The report also made nineteen recommendations to prevent these sorts of failures on future missions. We have previously mentioned the Beagle 2 failure, although the official report was not released to the public at that time. The original story from MarsToday.com is available here."

Lessons learned report

[Realistic_Dragon]

1) Do not do calculations requiring a high degree of accuracy on a Pentium.

I would like to appologise.

[Anonymous Coward]

For playing with my shiny new green laser pointer and shooting down beagle 2 by mistaking it for an aircraft.

Where from here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent- all eager /.ers click to view the report. At first, everything goes according to plan. After a while, the whole report disappears from view, with the host citing communication difficulies. A few days later, the report is written off as lost...

Re:Spaceward Ho

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was the vast amount more money and the vast amount more experience.

But no, apparently it's some 'cushy' scientist funded by the government. Unlike NASA, a vast operation funded by the government. Our lot had to spend half their time looking for funding!

Anyway, what did we learn from any of this?
Mars: deserted wasteland.
Titan: deserted wasteland.
Moon: deserted wasteland.
Venus: deserted wasteland.
What, beyond simple curiousity, is the benefit of any of it?

Critical lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

"Rule #1: Don't Have the British build the electronic parts"

Re:Groups of three

[zenmojodaddy]

I thought Martians were supposed to send landers HERE in groups of three. Perhaps we should give the next-generation Beagles a bunch of death-rays as well?

Re:Lessons learned report

[quarkscat]

(2) Avoid mixing Imperial and SI units in
your calculations (thanks NASA & Lockheed)

Re:Critical lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

I love ant tea.
Most people are anti it though.

Re:Buggered Beagle

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comments might mean something if I were actually American or even lived in America. The presumptive idiocy that you Brits possess is almost unreal and only goes to strengthen my original statement.

Hey, I think it's tea time. Perhaps you should go choke on a scone. Don't forget to brush your teeth afterwards.

Standard Boilerplate Recommendation #1

[Citizen of Earth]

1) The team conducting this study strongly recommends that the members of this team receive substantially more funding in the future.

Re:Groups of three

[Tablizer]

They should send three nearly identical copies of the same lander (re-using the same design and development effort), and have them land close enough to communicate directly with each other by radio....This way, if one lander loses the ability to communicate with the orbiters or with Earth, or even two of them lose it, the third can relay their data.

Cotcha trying to imagine a beowulf cluster of probes