Beagle II Successfully Separates 369
Control42 writes "After the long journey out, it seems that little Beagle II, the lander of the Mars express mission has successfully separated. If all goes well, the lander should touch down on Christmas Day. Seems that NASA has actually lost the edge in robotic space exploration." Reader chalker writes "In order to build public interest in the Mars Exploration Rovers 2004 missions landing in January, NASA has released a series of movie trailers (Flash enabled page, Windows Media and Quicktime formats) for what they are calling "M2K4". They contain quite amazing animations of the landings, as well as a professional artistic style typically seen in action movie trailers.
Additional videos on the launch, cruise, and landing challenges can be found at the JPL based mission site."
Quote from the Martian Information Minister (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, God... (Score:2)
On the plus side, everyone will speak really really good English, even the Martian prostitutes.
Re:Oh, God... (Score:2)
And that'll be litres, then.
Oh, stop. (Score:2)
A Google search will settle this.
liter = 2,980,000 hits
litre = 1,050,000 hits
Ha!
Re:Oh, stop. (Score:2)
The parent talked about the British-Martian culture where everyone would speak perfect English. Litre is the only accepted form of the word in Britain.
I know. I forgot the :-) (Score:2)
Re:I know. I forgot the :-) (Score:2)
Re:Oh, God... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh, God... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh, God... (Score:3, Funny)
Precisely. :-)
You see, the Martians are very adaptable, like the aliens in Alien Nation.
And another thing- wait.. is it me, or we arguing over a slur against a nonexistent species?
Congratulations. (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, its a long way down for Beagle 2 - hope it succeeds.
You forget. (Score:3, Interesting)
Even the documentation I saw used non-SI units, so the possibility of a screw up still exists.
Re:You forget. (Score:2)
SI units have been staple school fare for years.
Re:You forget. (Score:2)
Re:You forget. (Score:3, Informative)
Petrol has been sold in litres for about 10 years.
Metric units have been taught for years (30+?) in schools.
Our national mapping agency, the OS, produce maps with grids in metres or kilometres.
Everything apart from the road network is marked up in metric form. We still use miles for the road network though.
Re:Congratulations. (Score:2)
Not that again! -5:utter, tired lameness. RTFFRB. [nasa.gov]
Re:Congratulations. (Score:3, Informative)
NASA officially uses SI units. It's the contractors who still use antiquated units.
M2K4 ? (Score:4, Funny)
Only 5 generations 'til we get to the R2 series!
Hope (Score:5, Interesting)
It's probably too much to hope that we'll learn as much from the voyage of Beagle 2 as from that of Beagle 1, but that is my hope that goes with it.
More realistically,just some good data that further constrains any theories about Martian life.
Coming to a theater Near you! (Score:3, Funny)
Welcome to Mars!
Lost the Edge? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lost the Edge? (Score:2)
Or Apollo, whatever...
Re:Lost the Edge? (Score:3, Insightful)
And what a know-it-all about what it takes to accomplish space missions! Start everything from scratch again? Rubbish.
At the Conference on 20th & 21st Century Space Flight (Dec 18), this point was raised: Prior to Apollo, when JFK announced the goal to go to the Moon, America did not have a significant aerospace industry, with the contractor base, manufacturing capabilities, processes, and the entire infrastructure that we have now. That was all built
Re:Lost the Edge? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressre
Re:Oh for Chrissakes... (Score:2, Insightful)
i am not trying to say hey look "our probe is bigger than your probe" that was sort of started in the by the article itself...
and competition is good, maybe the ESA will find something NASA doesn't
Direct Links to movies (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Direct Links to movies (Score:5, Informative)
http://anon.nasa-global.speedera.net/anon.nasa-gl
http://anon.nasa-global.speedera.net/anon.nasa-gl
http://anon.nasa-global.speedera.net/anon.nasa-gl
Re:Direct Links to movies (Score:2)
What edge? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What edge? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What edge? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What edge? (Score:3, Insightful)
What about trying to make an international Mars mission ?
I know that maybe ISS is not very useful, but it certainly is a success in terms of engineering and many countries took part in it.
What about doing the same for Mars ?
Re:What edge? (Score:2)
Also, the scientist and engineers working on the actual stuff are much more likely to "go the extra mile" (or 1.609344 kilometers if working for ESA) if there's a feeling of competition.
Re:What edge? (Score:2)
ok, try this (Score:3, Informative)
Science is world-wide (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention, the fat lady has not sung yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
The lander is completely unpowered [bbc.co.uk] as far as propulsion goes. The separation was successful, but there is still plenty that can go wrong. And the same for the two NASA probes. Let's see how it all shakes out before making any conclusions.
I did that. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's Corgis (Score:2)
Just seems like a silly name for any dog, let alone a Corgi.
Re:That's Corgis (Score:2)
Well, she gives silly names to her children, why should the dogs have it any easier?
E.g. [royal.gov.uk] Named Andrew Albert Christian Edward,he was known as Prince Andrew until his marriage, when he was created The Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh.
One of the good things about being monarch is that you can keep on giving your children silly names even when they've grown up.
Re:That's Corgis (Score:2)
I can't wait (Score:2)
If the movie is anything like the trailer, this is gonna be the most anticipated movie event ever!
two-leg match (Score:3, Interesting)
What would religion think if they find life ? (Score:3, Insightful)
what would happen ? would there be a sudden roar of disbelief or would there be a "god created life there too" statement made, of course we havent decided what consitutes life yet (from our tiny perspective), can silicon or alternativ chemicals have life ? is life just a product of complexity or can simple systems have it too ? does it have to be carbon based ?
I don't think it would be a big deal (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I don't think it would be a big deal (Score:2)
-j
ET life was suggested by Christ himself (Score:3, Informative)
Some suggest that this passage implies that there is intelligent life other than on Earth. It's a little thin, but other religious beliefs have sprung out of even more tenuous evidence. At the very least, if ET life is found, the Christians could point to this passage and say, "We knew all along
Re:ET life was suggested by Christ himself (Score:5, Informative)
One Vatican astronomer says the possibility that humanity is alone in the universe is madness [rense.com]. Weirdly, the Jesuit order maintains observatories for the Vatican, some of which do important astrophysical research [wired.com]!
Best of British (Score:5, Interesting)
How is this so? Why are the US projects so much more expensive?
Re:Best of British (Score:3, Interesting)
NASA spent a shedload of money developing vehicles that can navigate the Martian terrain. This will be needed for future missions I'm certain but I don't understand why they have implemented it this early. At this stage of the game, one region of Martian terrain will be just as interesting as any other region. Why bother scooting off to "that rock over there" when "the one right next me" is just as scientifically useful?
Re:Best of British (Score:3, Interesting)
Uhh, no. I went to a talk a few months ago by a planetary scientist where she talked about site selection. There was a LOT of argument about it. Mission parameters (direct-to-Mars crash landing mode) limited touchdown sites to somewhere around the equator, but there was still a lot of choice.
The two sites look very interesting. One is a plain where there appears to be a lot of hematite, which we believe is formed primarily b
Because when you have to much money ... (Score:4, Insightful)
NASA as a weak budget but it was used to very big fundings during the cold war.
In Europ space has never been a top priority and fundings have always been really limited. When you have less you try to optimize everything and you tend to do better for cheaper.
Look at the Pathfinder mission with Sojourner. It was a Nasa mission but a mission without a very big funding. It was a tremendous success.
Re:Because when you have to much money ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to say this (as I am a scientist myself, and appreciate funding as much as the next guy), but constraints are in many cases a great motivator and focusing lens on what is truly important. With a nearly unlimited monetary/time/resource-budget, you'd likely waste most of it on nonessentials; in many cases perhaps the essentials would never even be identified, but lost in the sea of nice-to-haves.
Naturally, the above does in no way affect my particular work, which is always essential and topical, so please do not hesitate to send me lots of money, ok?
Don't Count Your Chickens... (Score:2)
Re:Best of British (Score:2)
They should be outsourcing the entire project to Indian companies.
Re:Best of British (Score:4, Interesting)
The answer is possibly related to the Scientists involved.
The Spirit and Opportunity landers may have been made by experienced scientists in scientifically clean labs and using wind tunnels designed for the military.
Beagle2 (not the Mars Express Orbiter) was cobbled together with pop groups and artists. There's a picture of the project PI (Collin Pillinger) pushing Beagle2 on a shopping trolley. This wasn't a "let's play up the low price tag" PR photograph. He really was transporting the lander on a shopping trolley.
There is then the technical complications. NASA have built two remote controlled sem-autonomous rovers, they have been designed to move about on terrain which has never been seen (from the ground) before. The Sojourner rover from the 90s did very little science because it was mostly wheels and batteries. The only thing I remember from the Sojourner mission is a rock named Yogi [astronet.ru].
The thing that separates the two missions is really only the PR. NASA tried to get the fancy rover factor that worked well with Sojourner, and even borrowed a few tricks from Beagle2 in their "were using musical tones to represent spacecraft state".
Beagle2, on the other hand, has a PI who can get people to work for free with the promise of fame (and fortune?). using an artist to paint a spotted calibration plate for the spectrometers/cameras which a scientist would have otherwise done. Using a pop group to play the "mission success" tune on landing (which, I have no doubt, will come through in crystal clear surround sound in the Lander Mission Control).
Going to Mars is expensive, Beagle2 was only cheap because a 300 million Euro orbiter was going that way anyway. Venus Express is recycling the Mars Express engineering models (and will be cheap).
It also has less than 1 in 3 chance of success (3 out of the last 5 failed). Nozomi is dead. 100 million USD [nasa.gov] doesn't buy what it used to.
BBRe:Best of British (Score:3, Informative)
I disagree, it did carry a simple but sophisticated instruments that has been used on foreign soil so far, the Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS). The wheels and batteries and solar panel where just build around that instrument to make it mobile since it hat to be placed directly on the surface of the material (rock, dust) you want to investigate.
I guess the reason you don't remember anything about
Re:Best of British (Score:3, Interesting)
It may have been a genuine photo, however he would have been pushing a shell or one of the mock-ups used for assembly testing. The actual lander itself was assembled in an Aseptic Assembly Facility (aka "clean room"), and transported to the launch site by truck on a sealed container. This container was about 2-3m on each side, and lifted into th
Re:Mini v Rolls-Royce. (Score:2)
Oh I don't know, all those little green people poking at it, with TV aerials sticking out of their heads, should make an interesting sight.
Great, now even the Martians will be driving SUVs.
Bleh. (Score:2, Funny)
Yes (Score:2)
The US probes are fancy and will make good press as the roll about, but in terms of actual science, the Beagle probe is way ahead.
Re:Yes (Score:2)
Uh huh. And your authoritative opinion on this derives from where?
trailers (Score:4, Insightful)
Anybody else read that and get kind of disappointed? I mean...I guess it would make it slightly more interesting, but EVERYBODY these days is turning things into action movie trailers. Hell, the whole "War on Terror" on the news seemed like a bunch of teasers and trailers for a big upcoming blockbuster (no pun intended).
I know they're trying to reach a broader audience, and I know they have to compete with Hollywood, but if they need to sink to the level of an action movie trailer to make science interesting then I think we are in trouble.
Anyone else think it's kinda sad ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Brit spacecraft? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Brit spacecraft? (Score:2)
On Mars? I'd have to agree it'll be difficult but Parcel Force [royalmail.com] might still be able to deliver.
Re:Brit spacecraft? (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously, the design and impetus is British, but the project is very much an european effort. Big congratulations to everyone.
Re:Brit spacecraft? (Score:4, Funny)
Webcast (Score:4, Informative)
And the post doesn't make clear that this is all EESA, the Beagle has nothing to do with NASA or its probes.
Beagle's not ESA either (Score:5, Informative)
There was a lot of publicity by the Beagle 2 team over the last few years to get the funding. The UK government only put in (I think) 2 million after they had the promise of other institutions would pay up (and I'm not sure they have got the money back yet).
The mission is almost entirely privately paid for.
The only link with NASA is that they will be relaying the first signal to see if it landed ok, and ESA agreed to allow Express to be used as a relay for NASA's rovers.
Re:Beagle's not ESA either (Score:2)
It was 5 million GBP in government funding.
Merry Christmas, Mars (Score:5, Funny)
Awwww, how cute, we gave Mars an Aibo for Christmas...
It definitely has separated ok (Score:3, Interesting)
I think this is the first time a spacecraft has taken a picture of another outside of earth orbit (ie the only previous ones are manned missions in either Earth or Lunar orbit).
Re:It definitely has separated ok (Score:2)
published yet ?
Re:It definitely has separated ok (Score:3, Informative)
You havn't by any chance an URL ? Or are they not published yet ?
You can find it here [beagle2.com].
Al.
Separation pic (Score:4, Informative)
Here is a link to the seperation picture [beagle2.com] of Beagle 2 taken by Mars Express
Re:Separation pic (Score:2)
The bright spot on the left-hand side of this picture is the back side of Beagle 2
It's not hard to spot, because there's nothing else in the picture apart from a fuzzy white dot.
I have no idea how this could be of any interest to anybody other than maybe the engineers who know beagle 2 well enough that they might, maybe, be able to get some useful data from it.
The BBC's Take... (Score:4, Informative)
A good resource if you had no clue what was going on, like me.
Well, of course Beagle's on schedule... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Well, of course Beagle's on schedule... (Score:2)
In SI, everything's a multiple of 10. I'm US born and raised, and the failure to convert to SI still bugs the hell out of me. I don't know why anyone would do work, particularly scientific work, in the half-assed imperial system. I used to hate it when the physics profs in college would insist that we work some problems in imperial units; what a pain in the ass.
Beagle is immobile (Score:2)
Remember: only 1/3 of Mars missions are successful. Does the failure of the Japanese mission (out of power) count in the failure list?
We'll see how it goes... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me that we should wait for the probe to actually land, power up, and communicate before we judge how far the EU has caught up.
With some of the coming propulsion breakthroughs, these missions are just scratching the surface (so to speak;) anyhow.
A sign space craft is designed by geeks... (Score:2)
WOW! (Score:2)
Love it!
awesome videos (Score:2)
Waiting for news (Score:3, Funny)
HH
Godspeed the Beagle, but don't count eggs yet (Score:3, Interesting)
There are still many things that can go wrong; remember the poor record of successful missions to Mars spans all countries... Russian, Soviet, US and now Japanese.
For one thing, be sure to keep an eye on growing dust storms [nifty.com] on Mars... they appear to be mostly confined to the southern hemisphere now, but that might change... and Beagle 2 is landing at only 11 degrees north.
We ALL stand to gain from a successful Beagle 2 mission as well as successful NASA missions.
NASA's Record (Score:5, Insightful)
Nasa is about to place several landers on mars shortly after beagle. They have landed 3 others on mars already (not including 2 that "landed"
They have lost their funding for various missions which makes them the same as Russia. They have had politicians control what missions take place (by providing moneys for their own local fat cats).
Creationism? (Score:2, Funny)
The beagle has landed.... (Score:3, Funny)
Why are these not open formats? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the past I've borrowed the VHS from a NASA ambassador and encoded it myself, but why should I have to?
Slashdot's Antipolicy (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it rocket science for Slashdot to hire editors who would be considered satisfactory for any other publication to ensure that thousands of people do not have to have a moment of pristine delight spoiled by an editorial policy that rewards knee-jerk jingoism? And how is this even calculated when hours earlier photos were shown from the incredible Spitzer Telescope, which took off from the Cape Canaveral launch facility after being built between the U.S., U.K., and the Netherlands?
It's a simple backhanded comment like this that obviously makes a lot of people feel like they're being fed shit when they could be spending their energy more productively. Geek editor you are unfortunately thy worst enemy. Poster, keep it in your pants! Slashdot, please quickly hire some talent, dudes!
Beagle software (Score:5, Informative)
ADA is still very popular amongst the European space companies and agencies (for a good reason I think) and particularly the ADA95 Ravenscar profile which gives a miniscule runtime the actual runtime is only about 4-5k which is pretty good considering that contains everything you need to execute the ADA code including tasking.
There is another opensource attempt at a ravenscar compiler called openravenscar funded by ESA here - for Sparc and Intel platforms [openravenscar.org]. Ravenscar [dit.upm.es] is basically a profile that removes the more complex features of the ADA languages to give a mathetmatically provable scheduling - so you can always cater for your worst case scenario. Such small executives are neccessary due to the prohibitive cost of rad hard EEPROMs as most missions have some sort of inflight reprogramming requirements. I think they are using the ERC32 processor which again, is an open source processor, along with its replacement LEON, you can even download the vhdl for the Sparc based leon here [gaisler.com]
Heres hoping Beagle makes it through the Martian atmosphere and takes some pictures of little green men.
MER Animation (Score:4, Interesting)
The best way to view them is the 9-minute launch-to-landing music video at:
http://athena.cornell.edu/the_mission/rov_video.h
And downloads including a DVD-spec MPEG-2 stream at:
http://www.maasdigital.com/gallery.html [maasdigital.com]
I also made a bunch of new animation for a NOVA documentary, "Mars, Dead or Alive," which will be shown on PBS January 4-6 (the first MER landing is late night Jan. 3).
The trailers NASA made look neat. Wish they had used our 24p master rather than interlaced video sources though.
Mars Express info... (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's an email I got yesterday:
Dear colleagues,
We are very close to our target! On Dec. 19 Beagle - 2 will be separated
and on Dec. 25 Mars Orbit Insertion executed. ESA is going to cover both
events on live TV on the ESA television and, of course, Internet. Below
follows a short time table for the main events.
All times are in CET (Central European Time ) = UT + 1
December 19
07:51 go/no-go decision to proceed with Beagle-2 ejection
08:21 spacecraft slew starts
08:51 spacecraft slew ends
09:31 first confirmation of separation
ESA TV sending
09:00 - 09:32 approx. (Internet 09:09 - 09:32) First sequence
11:25 - 11:47 approx. (Internet 11:25 - 11:47) Second sequence
12:00 - 12:10 approx. (Internet 12:00 - 12:10) Third sequence
December 24
21:00 MOI "go / no go"
December 25
02:47 MOI execution
02:50 Beagle 2 landing
05:15 Beagle 2 contact with Mars Odyssey
I will inform you about exact times of ESA TV live sending for December
25 later.
The permanent ESA channel:
Astra 2C at 19 degrees East
Transponder 57, horizontal, MPEG-2, MCPC
Frequency 10832 MHz, Symbol Rate 22000 MS/sec, FEC=5/6
Service name: ESA TV
Merry Christmas,
Stas
and another one
Check out ESA's picture of Beagle-2 now
separated from Mars Express.
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/index.html
Cheers,
Rick
Re:Lost The Edge My Ass (Score:2)
NASA had the edge for a long time, maybe it will lose it for a few months to the european with Beagle 2 (maybe not the thing has still many lucks to crash on Mars). And maybe it will recover it with the next missions.
The parent seems a little flamebait to me. And it also seems the submitter of this story is Swiss (.ch on his email) so stop bashing the british please.
Re:Lost The Edge My Ass (Score:2)
Re:Lost The Edge My Ass (Score:2)
Re:Lost The Edge My Ass (Score:5, Insightful)
Viewing the science and exploration as a competition makes it appear like you are more interested in the nationalistic aspects of it than the scientific.
IF you have to discuss it, the "we've sent waaay more robotic explorers out there" is a pretty bad point.
I live in Denmark, we had Vikings; The vikings ruled the sea for a very long time. After that we had a LARGE fleet that was comparable to the english for the better part of 18th and 19th century.
Now we can just sit back on our asses for the next couple of decades and STILL have ruled the sea for longer than the americans...
This obviously translates into: Danish sailors kicks american sailor ass.
just like NASA kicks everyone elses ass because they went to the moon before everyone else.
Mirror (Score:3, Funny)