Simulations May Explain Loss of Beagle 2 Mars Probe

chrb writes "Researchers at Queensland University have used computer simulations to calculate that the loss of the US$80 million British Beagle 2 Mars probe was due to a bad choice of spin rate during atmospheric entry, resulting in the craft burning up within seconds. The chosen spin rate was calculated by using a bridging function to estimate the transitional forces between the upper and lower atmosphere, while the new research relies on simulation models. Beagle 2 team leader Professor Colin Pillinger has responded saying that the figures are far from conclusive, while another chief Beagle engineer has said 'We still think we got it right.'"

Re:How weird

[andy_t_roo]

well according to the current score, the game is about a 20 all tie -- although this doesn't count any points scored this year

http://www.bio.aps.anl.gov/~dgore/fun/PSL/marsscorecard.html [anl.gov]

Come on, Cider...

[Herve5]

Come on, Cider is french :-D

European Space Agency assessment found other flaws

[Anonymous Coward]

There has been a very detailed assessment of this failure by the European Space Agency at the time, and the guys were quite competent being the ones that built the (successful) Huygens probe to Titan embarked on Cassini.
ESA found many issues, mostly due to way too severe cost constraints (a "british-only" program...).

Among them IIRC, the main parachute that was changed in extremis (when the unpaid earlier maker announced they wouldn't go up to offer the flight model too) resulted in a drag coefficient that was smaller than the drag of the front shield, this big "bottom" device that you drop immediately after the peak entry aerothermal flux. Having such a drag ratio means the front shield could perfectly have slammed back onto the descent module upon release, or just inside the parachute itself with the consequence you can imagine (all of this happens at around Mach 1).

And that one was just an issue among others...

I'm searching for that ESA document but I just can't track it back right now :(

Re:Come on, it's british

[xaxa]

Name a one thing british ever made right.

Railways. Television. Electric motor. Flushing toilet. Steam engine & locomotive. Computer. Seed drill. Tank. Custard. Cat flap. Jet engine. World wide web. Penicillin.

Some Background

[Catmeat]

Beagle 2 always was an underfunded project with zero margin for error. For background, see this 2005, 2-part article by respected space historian and author, Dwayne Day.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/330/1 [thespacereview.com]

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/347/1 [thespacereview.com]

As for Colin Pillinger, note that the (initially secret) ESA report on the Beagle failure put much of the blame on project management failings and he's not been put in charge of any large project since.

Re:Come on, it's british

[ciderVisor]

Name a one thing british ever made right.

Scotch Whisky.
Rolls Royce cars.
Aston Martin cars.
TVR cars.
Lotus cars.
Triumph motorbikes and cars (and bras and knickers...)
Marshall amps.
Trace Elliot amps.
Orange amps.
Vox amps, guitars and organs.
The AVOmeter.
Harrier V/STOL aircraft.
The Hillman Imp.


No, wait...

Re:Bridging function?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what is a "bridging function"? Definitely not something about Ethernet bridging... but what is it?

From the context, I would imagine that it is a function that interpolates between the behavior of and forces on the craft in orbit (well studied by previous orbiters) and the behavior expected in the lower atmosphere (well studied by previous probes). The intervening region is probably not that well covered by available data, so some sort of function must be guessed to fill-in the gap between the two datasets. There may be features in the upper Martian atmosphere that were not present in the bridging function that they used to model the probe landing.

Re:How weird

[Anonymous Coward]

For something so mission critical, well... you'd think they would have more than one of them up there.

Beagle 2 was not mission critical - it was an underfunded bolt-on to Mars Express, which is doing quite nicely, thank you.

Re:Some Background

[zrq]

As for Colin Pillinger .... he's not been put in charge of any large project since.

According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], he was diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis in 2005. So he might not feel up to spending the next few years fighting the inevitable political and administrative battles a project like this would involve.

Re:Calculate This

[sleeponthemic]

I pasted your post into windows calculator as requested.

The answer was 55378008.

I suspect the polarity was reversed during the process, though. You should probably view it from a vertically inverted vantage point.

Re:Explanation?

[DerekLyons]

There is something wrong but interesting about the idea that a computer simulation can explain what happened in a real-life incident. In the normal usage of "explain", only causally-related events can explain other events.

Huh? The dictionary definition of explain [merriam-webster.com] pretty much matches how I've used it and seen it used all my life - and bears no relation to your "definition".

Re:It's The Name

[crowne]

I thought that it was named after the HMS Beagle upon which Darwin made his first observations that led to his theory of natural selection / evolution.