Spirit Rover Lands Successfully 849
So, as I write this, the latest word is: the Spirit rover has landed and NASA has received a signal indicating it landed right-side up (so it shouldn't have any problems in the unfolding process) and will shortly be retracting the protective airbags which kept it from splattering all over the countryside. Y'all can fill in later news in the comments below. There's a nice site with up-to-the-minute text updates.
Yay (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yay (Score:5, Funny)
hmm (Score:3, Funny)
Re:hmm (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yay (Score:5, Informative)
Video (Score:3, Informative)
NASA TV 1 [nasa.gov]
NASA TV 2 [nasa.gov] - (looks better quality to me)
AC
Re:Yay (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Those are mooninites! (Score:5, Funny)
Mars Rover Spirit Lands, Goes Radio Silent (Score:4, Informative)
Looks like michael achieved the very difficult simultaneous posted/rejected duo.
Here's the rejected post which amounts to a mixed report on the success of the mission, courtesy of Reuters, Space.com and the BBC:
Reuters [reuters.com] and the BBC [bbc.co.uk] report that the first U.S. Mars Rover - the Spirit - has landed and radioed a confirmation signal, but has since gone silent [reuters.co.uk]. NASA/JPL are waiting to learn if it survived. Space.com [space.com] reports that the Spirit has indeed landed safely [space.com].
Re:Mars Rover Spirit Lands, Goes Radio Silent (Score:5, Informative)
Although the roughly 10 minutes was longer than anyone expected the signal to be gone, it wasn't all that unusual. When NASA's DSN locked back onto the signal, it was strong. It is then that NASA learned the lander landed right-side-up and the airbags were still inflated (which is very good news). Airbag deflation, petel opening, and the first survey of the landing site is up next. We might even have our first pictures within the next 12 hours or so.
Re:Yay (Score:4, Funny)
NASA: We get signal! Main screen turn on!
Mars Goblin: How are you gentlemen! All your probe are belong to us!
NASA: What you say!
Mars Goblin: Ha ha ha! You are on the way to destruction! All your probe are belong to us!
NO CARRIER
Re:FIRST ROVER IMAGE FROM SURFACE OF MARS!!!!! (Score:3, Informative)
ANOTHER GREAT IMAGE (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:MARS (Score:3, Informative)
Take that Beagle 2! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Take that Beagle 2! (Score:5, Informative)
Fingers crossed!
Re:Take that Beagle 2! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Take that Beagle 2! (Score:3, Insightful)
Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
CTO, Immunix Inc. [immunix.com]
Re:Take that Beagle 2! (Score:3, Informative)
Mars 3 - 28 May 1971 - Mars Orbiter/ Lander
"Mars 3 was launched towards Mars from a Tyazheliy Sputnik (71-049C) Earth orbiting platform. A mid-course correction was made on 8 June. The descent module (71-049F) was released at 09:14 UT on 2 December 1971, 4 hours 35 minutes before reaching Mars. The descent module entered the martian atmosphere at roughly 5.7 km/s. Through aerodynamic braking, parachutes, and retro-rockets, the lander achieved a
Re:Take that Beagle 2! (Score:3, Insightful)
The primary purpose of Beagle 2 was to find evidence of life on Mars. Spirit Rover's was to find evidence of water. Beagle 2's mission was far more exciting, and I'm disappointed that it seems to have failed.
That being said, the anti-US "u r teh fat and stupids" rhetoric does get annoying sometimes, but those posters are in the minority.
Re:Take that Beagle 2! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Take that Beagle 2! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Take that Beagle 2! (Score:5, Funny)
Nasa's lander had, among all its technology, a slice of buttered toast, buttered side down, on the bottom of the lander. That's the only way to ensure it landed the correct way up
The lack of buttered toast is what doomed Beagle2
Re:Take that Beagle 2! (Score:5, Insightful)
So there is no need to party you are number 1 now... we believe you. and luckily nasa officials also don't do that : nasa assisted the projects of its little brothers (esa could even use nasa equipment when we were in trouble, and nasa helped us out a bit in creating the mars express as you can see on nasa's site)
Re:Take that Beagle 2! (Score:5, Insightful)
I do hope that Beagle2 is alive and well. It is good science that will be surely missed.
So far, we are 100% on this form of landing (Sojourner and Mer-A). As I have mentioned before, I am hopeful that we can start a production line of this vehicle for other countries as well as USA. The British ship was only 60 million, but if we do it right, we can get a production line explorer for less than 100 million. Just add Sci. equipment.
Re:Take that Beagle 2! (Score:3, Insightful)
But in any case, you've got to admit - there IS no doubt some feeling of rivalry (if not by the scientists themselves, then at least by their paymasters and governmental types) and I would be very surprised to find that the European project funders would be rather... well if not actually "dismayed by the success of the American mission as opposed to th
Re:When you need to get something done: turn to US (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:When you need to get something done: turn to US (Score:3, Interesting)
Whilst it isn't a bad aid program, it's certainly not "unmatched". The EU member states toget
Re:When you need to get something done: turn to US (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure which is worse: getting your info from Michael Moore or getting it from Noam Chomsky. I find both of those prospects frightening.
BBC News Mars Rover Report (Score:5, Informative)
Re:BBC News Mars Rover Report (Score:4, Funny)
Mission officials said that means that if time permitted before the Martian dusk, the rover could start snapping pitchers of Mars late Saturday night.
I hope them pitchers look perty!
NASA TV press conference (Score:5, Informative)
Re:NASA TV press conference (Score:3, Informative)
One down...one to go (Score:5, Interesting)
Beagle 2 still has a chance when it starts ping flooding on the 5th.
If we get good enough at these, I'd love to have a rover to drive all over just to find all the missing missions.
Re:One down...one to go (Score:5, Funny)
Tm
Re:One down...one to go (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they didn't pick up Beagle's signal because it was indistinguishable from background noise?
New device (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New device (Score:3, Funny)
Mission Updates (Score:5, Informative)
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/status.html [spaceflightnow.com]
I watched it on NASA TV, too. It was quite an exciting ride through entry and landing. We have the second rover landing to look forward to on January 24.
Cool Animation (Score:5, Informative)
DVD Quality version (Score:3, Interesting)
Available only as BitTorrent:
Download torrent here. [maasdigital.com]
(stolen from Fark) (Score:5, Funny)
Re:(stolen from Fark) (Score:3, Funny)
NASA cable channel (Score:3, Interesting)
-Steve
Search For Beagle (Score:3, Funny)
Even if it only finds an impact crater
In other news.... (Score:5, Funny)
He went on to say that their Defense Minister "Marvin" is working on a uber weapon known as the Illudium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator that will vanquish the infadels in a single Earth shattering KABOOM!
-PizaZ
Re:In other news.... (Score:3, Funny)
There are no robotic infidels on Mars! Never! The probes have started to commit suicide under the walls of our craters!
First Post???? (Score:4, Funny)
Check my site soon for hot, live and free cam shows and exclusive pics.
Love,
Spirit
Re:First Post???? (Score:5, Funny)
64 bytes from spirit.mars.solarsystem: icmp_seq=0 ttl=239 time=960000 ms
--- spirit.mars.solarsystem ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 960000 ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 960000/960000/960000/960000 ms, pipe 2
CNN (Score:3, Interesting)
What an idiot. "15 watts worth of information" What the hell does that mean?
He actually then said "they could only transmit tones, because it was only 15 watts."
15 watts is enough to transmit from outside our solar system and has nothing to do with the data rate.
Anyway, it worked! Hurray for NASA and the Taxpayers!
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Now my name is on Mars along with 3,551,645 others (Score:5, Interesting)
I put my name and those of my family on a DVD which was attached by metallic LEGO blocks to one side of the lander module.
It's nice to know that a tiny part of me just achieved a small measure of immortality on another planet in our solar system.
I wonder if in my lifetime I'll get to take a trip there and visit it in person?
Quizo69
Not to mention Stardust! (Score:4, Informative)
I believe there was also another microchip on another of the mars probes, where your name got on it if you were a member of the Planetary Society [planetary.org] but I can't seem to find the link at the moment. I just vaguely remember printing out a certificate a few years ago.
Re:Now my name is on Mars along with 3,551,645 oth (Score:5, Funny)
That was brilliant. Now you will get spam from Martians, such as: "Increase all of your penises by 300%! And make them greener too!"
As immortal... (Score:5, Funny)
As immortal as a DVD in a martian sand storm?
Re:Now my name is on Mars along with 3,551,645 oth (Score:3, Funny)
Here it comes! (Score:3, Insightful)
First off, for the record, I'm American, supported the war (and voted for Gore in 2000), support Israel and I'm often pissed off at how much Anti-Americanism (oftern, but not always, different than anti-bushism) that I have seen lately.
That being said, I find these stupid NASA/ESA bashings to be so awful. Since 1999, everytime there has been a NASA story on slashdot there have been annoying and STUPID "hey, duh, maybe NASA couldn't tell the difference between metric and English units!" comments. Similarly, after Beagle 2's loss there were equally immature "Ha! Take that Europe!" comments from immature Americans.
The point is, political stuff aside, these missions benefit EVERYONE, not just the country involved. I mean, don't you WISH the russian lander made it to mars in 1996, or that the nasa polar lander landed successfully, or that Beagle 2 didn't die?
I mean, thanks to those failures, we are now maybe 150 years (arbitrary number) away from our first pictures of the surface of the ice caps, or the landscapes that Mars 96 or Beagle would have landed in. Now I doubt we'll know what the chemical basis of the polar ice is for another half-century (who knows... maybe they coulda found it to be a pretty high concentration of a substance that would help human missions for fuel, water, etc). I mean, Mars Climate Orbiter's failure lost us daily weather patterns for a foreign celestial body, but at least it gave trolls good ammunition for Anti-American comments.
So in the end, root for (your side) to win the olympics, be the one whose economy does better or for your countryperson to win the nobel peace prize. That will benefit your country and those are things that you should take pride in. But every scientist in the world has basically equally benefitted from Viking, Venera and Voyager (and especially Spirit/Opportunity - a lot of their data comes straight to the world wide web). Those missions might bring temporary clout and prestige to that country's scientists, but a year later and it's EVERYONE who benefits. That's all I gotta say...
PowerPC-powered rover (Score:5, Informative)
"The computer in each Mars Exploration Rover runs with a 32-bit Rad 6000 microprocessor, a radiation-hardened version of the PowerPC chip used in some models of Macintosh computers, operating at a speed of 20 million instructions per second. Onboard memory includes 128 megabytes of random access memory, augmented by 256 megabytes of flash memory and smaller amounts of other non-volatile memory, which allows the system to retain data even without power."
Oh Damn... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:PowerPC-powered rover (Score:5, Interesting)
Spirit vs Beagle (Score:4, Interesting)
When I hear that the US has successfully landed a craft on Mars, I don't feel particularly surprised. I'd have been more surprised if the mission had failed. But when the Beagle mission (apparently) failed, my reaction was neutral, almost as if I had *expected* it to fail, and a large part of that was due to it being a non-US mission.
I guess my point is this: If you're one of the people, like me, who is sick of Americans thinking that their country is "all that", then this success should be another reminder that as far as the advancement of science and discovery is concerned, their pride may be less patriotic arrogance and more a statement of fact.
Oh and I'm not ass-kissing Americans, I'm just feeling a little angry that another country has thrown away another opportunity of doing something important, only for the US to step in and show us how it's done.
If you want to be the best then actually being the best might be a good place to start. This fundamentally competitive attitude is something that Americans seem to inherently understand and embrace, whereas in other countries it is often frowned upon as distasteful.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Spirit vs Beagle (Score:3, Interesting)
There's much truth in that. Not to be arrogantly American and jingoistic, but this country really is different, for better or worse.
I've lived in several countries on four continents outside the U.S. In every country, it was common, and frequent, for someone to ask me if I knew anyone who could help them get a visa to t
Re:Spirit vs Beagle (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps that says more about the Americanisation of my home country (Australia) than anything else, but there it is.
I think that is very common in places where English is the primary language. See, people are hungry for television and movie shows, both of which are extremely expensive to produce. The USA has a well established media industry infrastructure in California and New York. And, having that helps to reduce some of that cost - if you are making a TV show in Los Angeles and need to find a spec
Re:Spirit vs Beagle (Score:3, Insightful)
To say that the Beagle team has "thrown away" an opportunity was too dismissive and I wish I'd phrased it more tactfully. Those people have dedicated years of their lives to achieving something and, unfortunately, didn't succeed on this occasion. They will, of course, have learned a lot along the way.
I, on the other hand, have done precisely nothing to further science, so I shouldn't be so quick to judge.
Re:Spirit vs Beagle (Score:5, Interesting)
Andy, man, you have issues. One of a very small number of man-made probes has managed to actually land on another planet, a rare event in history, and you find yourself wrapped up in this "America is best" nonsense. None of this American NASA vs. The Rest of the World BS even occurred to me until I saw your post. The last thing I would have done is lord over the Beagle failure with this landing. If you are actually experiencing such poor behavior you need to consider the quality of the people to which you have exposed yourself. In the meantime, chill out. You may rest assured that the bulk of Americans are a humble, respectful lot that wish you and yours the best.
Re:Spirit vs Beagle (Score:3, Interesting)
their pride may be less patriotic arrogance and more a statement of fact.
Well, from this US citizen, let me say that the problem is that Mars missions have had a very bad success rate (not surprising given what's being attempted), and the US has just had more trials so far than Britain had. Some US missions have vanished without a trace also. Britain has only had one single "roll of the dice" so far, so that's not enough to make a judgement call on as to what kind of success rate they are capable of.
yet another two cents, not so pessimistic (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, Britain has historically placed a very low priority (almost non-existant) on space missions of any sorts. I'm sure securing the funding they did get for Beagle was a fight and a half.
Though Beagle's landing operation may have failed, landing is the most difficult and expensive part of the craft construction. But the rest of the construction is important as well and surel
Re:Self-worth (Score:3, Insightful)
Production Line (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I am interested in seeing a bunch of these crawl all over mars with all sorts of different science packages.
Re:Production Line (Score:3, Funny)
l-mart; 1 step above k-mart.
Ground Zero (Score:5, Interesting)
When we got the signal, it was truely spectacular, everyone so excited, clapping, standing and hugging each other with vigorous congradulations. I was fortunate enough to be able to congradulate some of the higher ups (PI Steve Squyres, whom I work for, and Science Manager John Callas).
On behalf of all of us on MER, I'd like to thank everyone that's supported this mission, especially those slashdotters that have vigorously defended the purpose and existance of mars. What we are doing is hard, but not impossible, and we will continue to try until we prevail.
Today we had what I hope was the first of many victories on mars. We should be getting the first image back in a few minutes from the next odyssey pass.
BTW, I'm not sure what the press releases said, but we were very fortunate that the lander landed base petal down, which should speed up deployment significantly as there is no need for the actuators to push against the weight of the rover.
As I said earlier tonight, tonight went so well that it was as if we won the lottery, and by that I mean not just us at JPL but everyone on earth that will benefit from the knowlege we acquire. Congradulations all!
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activity Planner Support Staff
Mars Exploration Rovers
Re:Ground Zero (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks. I have always been a staunch defender of the existence of Mars.
Re:Ground Zero (Score:3, Funny)
I'm not supposed to tell you this, but it's a government conspiracy!
Actually I woke up at 3:00 AM PST so... you get the idea
Re:Question about base petal down - all luck? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Question about base petal down - all luck? (Score:4, Informative)
Disclaimer: I work at JPL, but not on the Mars Exploration Rovers.
From what I understand, it's basically like rolling a die - there may be a slightly higher probability of landing on some of the sides due to weight distribution, but not enough that anyone was counting on it landing base petal down.
With any of the other three orientations, it wouldn't have been a problem - by deflating the airbags in just the right order and using other devices to reorient it, it's designed to end up right-side-up eventually. All of the possible scenarios were simulated and tested extensively at JPL. Remember that this was the same trick used successfully by the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997. Some improvements have been made, but it's the same idea.
The fact that it happened to land right-side-up just means that it will take less time, and probably use less power, to unwrap everything, and also that the overall chance of success is slightly higher just because there's one less thing to worry about going wrong.
Congrats, NASA/JPL! Boo, NASA TV. (Score:5, Insightful)
But NASA TV... you blew it. Again.
Here you have this tremendous opportunity to involve Americans young and old with the space program, to get them excited and emotionally invested in space exploration, and what do you do? You show us video of the control room.... with the sound off. You let us in on what the Flight Director is saying, but you don't decode it for the average viewer so they know what it means. You make landing on another freaking planet more boring than most cable access shows. Take a bow.
You didn't even start your coverage until an hour before landing. If you had any vision, you could've made a whole day of it. You could've made it an event. Fuck Survivor, you've got the ultimate reality show! You should've had the whole nation tuned in. Instead they watched a repeat of MAD TV.
NASA TV, wake up! You should be kicking the Sci-Fi channel's ass. Really. I expect more from you in the future.
Re:Congrats, NASA/JPL! Boo, NASA TV. (Score:3, Insightful)
But, this still doesn't excuse them from making bad tv...
In further defense of NASA TV, their operating budget for the whole year probably doesn't equal the budget of 1 episode of Survivor...then you've gotta bring in ppl over the wee
Re:Congrats, NASA/JPL! Boo, NASA TV. (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought the commentators did a great job, but I found myself wanting more of a raw feed with a lot less explanation. When someone on the flight control loop reports that they've aquired a signal, I don't need someone to repeat that they've aquired a signal. I don't think that Joe Armchair needs it either.
I also found myself wishing they'd be quiet when something was happening. There was incredible drama in the room; some of the commentary got in the way of the story. When someone in the loop says something, the explainer should hush up so we can hear.
Still, great program. I sent the cats flying for cover with my hooting when I heard that they had a safe landing.
Well, some redemption for NasaTV now (Score:3, Insightful)
Looks like they ended up against a nice juicy rock.
And, for the geeky out there I saw a very brief "Gimp" splashscreen.
I am very, very glad to have NasaTV tonight no matter how rough around the edges.
Re:Congrats, NASA/JPL! Boo, NASA TV. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Congrats, NASA/JPL! Boo, NASA TV. (Score:3, Interesting)
I got to watch it with about 600 other people at my local science museum [omsi.org] (via satellite feed). They had 300 chairs in an auditorium, playing it on a huge screen. When that filled up, they quickly scampered to get it playing on the ceiling of the planetarium. When that filled up, they played the audio in the hallway for everyone left.
I admit it was pretty damn dry, but watching it with a few hundred other people helped fill in the dull moments. A hush over the entire
great news! lets not gloat over it (Score:4, Insightful)
Total Mission Bandwidth & Data Constraints (Score:5, Informative)
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/comm_data.html [nasa.gov]
If we assume best case scenario for the transmission potential stated there and assume the direct-to-Earth rate averages the midpoint between the stated 12000bps and 3500bps, the total daily data for a single Martian day, direct-to-Earth and orbiter relay potential combined, is on the order of 17MB. The total data for the entire mission is on the order of 1,550MB.
Of course, this has to include protocol overhead, error, and operating instructions, but it provides one quantitative, if not qualitative, answer to how much data can be retrieved by the mission. In this case, a bit more than 2 CDs worth.
Re:Total Mission Bandwidth & Data Constraints (Score:4, Interesting)
Note that with multiple cameras at 1024x1024 resolution, the Mars Exploration Rovers could easily send quite a bit more information than that if the bandwith was available. I work in the Machine Learning Systems group at JPL, and one of our goals is to eventually put some artificial intelligence software onto a future Mars rover so that it can take far more pictures than could ever be transmitted, analyze them onboard, and send only the most interesting ones back. It's very tricky to pin down exactly what makes one image more interesting than another, of course, so that's the real challenge...
Re:Total Mission Bandwidth & Data Constraints (Score:3, Interesting)
First images!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Latest Images from Spirit (as of 5AM EST) (Score:3, Informative)
Image 1 [spaceflightnow.com] Screencap
Image 2 [spaceflightnow.com] NASA Folks looking at image
Image 3 [spaceflightnow.com] 360' shot
Image 4 [spaceflightnow.com] NASA Folks looking at 360'
Image 5 [spaceflightnow.com] panorama
Image 5 Large [spaceflightnow.com] larger panorama
Image 6 [spaceflightnow.com] first image before contact
.html
and if you havent noticed already just change # on the URL for the latest:
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040104image #
Oh yeah, and I second the fact that NASA-TV should have made this a big event but:
a. What cable provider has NASA TV anymore, I think the general american public lost their space spirit (no pun intended) after the first few apollo missions.
b. Ok, so hypathetically, if it were a big event like, say, the first moon mission, and it failed horribly, that really wouldnt help the american general public moral, now would it.
I'm sure the CNN bit tomorrow will suffice for most people and as for those interested, check out this site [nasa.gov] for tons of images and some beautiful animations and video clips.
Beagle vs. Spirit (Score:4, Insightful)
- Spirit (~$400 mil) has over six times the budget of the Beagle (~$60 mil)
- Spirit is built on the success of Pathfinder.
- This is the European Space Agency's *first* time out to mars, and they attempted a *landing*
- Our first two times out failed (Mariner 3 & 4), and our third was just a flyby for 71 photos. Of course, that was 1969.
- Pathfinder is more recent, cost ~$200 mil... but of course Beagle is not a rover.
- ESA never had a strong national space program similar to the US or USSR for budget reasons, as well as many other factors (natural resources, age and background of the nations it comprises, WW I & II)
Bottom line, a simple comparison is impossible. Even so, here is an attempt: US space program performs better due to being the greatest world power (at the cost of being one of the worlds most hated nations). Money and power are very good for making Martian rovers (and microchips, and wireless networks, and stealth bombers), but they are also good at building inflated self images.
My point? If you succeed, don't gloat, help others.. If you fail, try again.
Why can't we just get along? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sweet.....now just one question. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Congratulations NASA (Score:4, Insightful)
The USA did great - nobody can hold a candle to it in this kind of thing. America should be justifiably proud of the job done by the first-rate people at JPL/NASA.
All the same there's only one thing worse than a sore loser and that's an ungracious winner. There's really no need to go strutting and preening and engaging in dominance poses about it. It shows quite a bit more class to just win and then be decent about it.
Re:Congratulations NASA (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the huge Anti-US sentiment on this site, I thought this would be a good occasion to tweak that crowd a little.
Apparently by the moderation, they can dish it, but can't take it.
Re:Congratulations NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activity Planner Support Staff
Mars Exploration Rovers
Re:For once... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's also a good sign that putting more spending in the program by Bush actually helped.
Premature but hopefully a good sign. Any president of either party that cuts spending on something so important gets my thumbs down. They use their cell phones developed by NASA to make the phone call to cut their spending.
Re:Next on Mars is power (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Congratulations Nasa! (Score:3, Funny)
You're obviously not overclocking your machine enough then.
Re:Great! (Score:3, Interesting)
During high profile missions (like tonight), though, they tend to get swamped no matter where you go. I got kicked off a few times but was able to reconnected almost immediatly.
Beagle-2 and MER-A (Spirit) are not close enough together to do a search. MER-2 (Opportunity) also won'
Re:Why bounce? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Awesome! Somewhat satisfying... (Score:4, Insightful)
I am arrogant? How exactly? By paraphrasing what ESA officials gleefully were saying after NASA failures. I am still rooting for Beagle 2.
As Americans we are used to being called every name in the book, it is part of the burden of being the parents of the world. Like children, no one blames others for criticizing the parents (USA) only when the parent fouls up do we get outbursts from everyone.
Just out of curiosity, how do you know it was the communication technology that failed? How do you know it didn't smash into the surface?
We may know something soon on the Beagle 2 front and hopefully it is good news
--Joey