Has Beagle 2 Been Found on Mars?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Beagle 2 Might Really Have Been Found

The Beagle has landed. Or at least, we might be about to find out that it did, after all.

Yesterday we reported the news that the UK Space Agency had scheduled a press conference for Friday for an "update" on the doomed British Mars lander Beagle 2, sent to its untimely end on the red planet in 2003.

Reports now suggest that the probe may have been spotted near its intended landing site.

Read more...

[Peter B]

...wider and flatter than when constructed, by the sounds of it. :-)

[Waspie_Dwarf]

...wider and flatter than when constructed, by the sounds of it. :-)

That remains to be seen.

If it is sitting on the surface near the intended landing zone it could still prove to be something frustrating such as a radio transmitter failure that doomed the mission AFTER a succesful landing. I guess we'll know more on Friday

The fact that a mission that cost so little (£50 million, $75.5 million US) came so close to working at least partially vindicates the late Prof. Pillinger's philosophy of cheap planetary exploration. The Indian Mars Orbiter Mission is further proof that Pillinger as right and that missions don't need to cost billions.

Sadly UK governments have been fairly hostile to planetary exploration. The inquiry into the failure of the mission was extremely critical. Rather than doing hat the Americans would have done, learned from the mistakes, moved on and tried again, this was the first and only UK attempt at a planetary probe.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Waspie_Dwarf
typo

[maximusnow]

I was just about to type a stupid comment, for fun and then I saw Waspi posted this, and I dont want to prove that I am stupid, so i will just say , interesting!

Edited January 13, 2015 by maximusnow

[Merc14]

Mars is a very tough place to land a probe and the US learned lot of lessons the hard, suffering its share of losses at the red planet. The lessons learned, however, led to the brilliant delivery package that got Curiosity safely onto the surface of Mars and any lessons learned from Beagle 2 will be useful including it landed safely and just didn't work.

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

So far I believe that India is the only country to have a 100 % accident free record regarding Mars, and they have only sent one mission.

Exploring Mars is not an easy job.

The Mars Express orbiter, from the same launch as Beagle 2, has been going strong for more than 11 years. So part of the mission has been incredibly succesful.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

So far I believe that India is the only country to have a 100 % accident free record regarding Mars, and they have only sent one mission.

Exploring Mars is not an easy job.

The only nation yes, but, arguably, not the only space agency.

I say arguably because it depends on whether you consider Beagle 2 a separate mission or simply one of Mars Express' instruments. It is further complicated by whether you consider Beagle 2 an ESA or a British mission.

Given all those caveats it can be argued that ESA also has a 100% record. Mars Express has been operating successfully around Mars since 2003.

[Warf]

Friday!!!!! I suppose we have to give them time to brush out the pictures just incase.

[Cruel_Cahal]

Is it sitting up on blocks with no wheels on it? Was it stripped by Martian ghetto thugs?

[Ashyne]

the Beagle 2 mission was an ambitious attempt to look for signs of life on Mars

When a probe whose mission was to look for signs of life on Mars mysteriously disappears without a trace, only aliens can be blamed for trying to cover up their existence from nosy humans.

[Merc14]

When a probe whose mission was to look for signs of life on Mars mysteriously disappears without a trace, only aliens can be blamed for trying to cover up their existence from nosy humans.

Classic "There goes the neighborhood!" syndrome

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Friday!!!!! I suppose we have to give them time to brush out the pictures just incase.

Maybe it was to give people time to post something original and intelligent or witty instead of the same old unoriginal, unfunny, ill-informed conspiracy nonsense that gets posted in every Mars thread.

Personally I'm not going to hold my breath.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

UK-led Beagle 2 lander found on Mars

Beagle 2 successfully landed on Mars on 25th December 2003.

The UK-led Beagle 2 Mars Lander, thought lost on Mars since 2003, has been found partially deployed on the surface of the planet, ending the mystery of what happened to the mission more than a decade ago. This find shows that the Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) sequence for Beagle 2 worked and the lander did successfully touchdown on Mars on Christmas Day 2003. Beagle 2 hitched a ride to Mars on ESA’s Mars Express mission and was a collaboration between industry and academia. It would have delivered world-class science from the surface of the Red Planet. Many UK academic groups and industrial companies contributed to Beagle 2.

Read more...

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Beagle 2 Found on Mars

The UK-led Beagle 2 was due to land on Mars on 25 December 2003. The spacecraft was ejected from Mars Express on 19 December 2003. Nothing had been heard from Beagle 2 and the mission was presumed lost. Until now.

It has now been announced that the Mars Lander has been identified partially deployed on the surface of Mars by images taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). These images show potential targets on the surface of Mars for the lander and key entry and descent components within the expected landing area.

Following analysis by members of the Beagle 2 team, which includes Leicester scientists, and NASA, the images show the Beagle 2 lander in what appears to be a partially deployed configuration with the main parachute and what is thought to be the rear cover close by.

Several interpretations of the image of the lander have been identified, consistent with the lander’s size and shape and changes in light reflections suggest that the object is metallic – again consistent with Beagle 2.

Professor Colin Pillinger from the Open University, who died in May 2014, led the Beagle 2 project along with colleagues from our Department of Physics and Astronomy. Another major contributor, Professor George Fraser and Director of the Space Research Centre at the University, also passed away in 2014.

Credit: University of Leicester

Source: University of Leicester - YouTube Channel

[Peter B]

...wider and flatter than when constructed, by the sounds of it. :-)

Well, it seems my flippant comment was wrong.

What a shame to come so close to success and then fail.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Well, it seems my flippant comment was wrong.

To be fair it's what most experts believed until now.

What a shame to come so close to success and then fail.

I think the real shame is that Colin Pillinger died never knowing how close his "baby" came to succeeding.

[paperdyer]

Unfortunately, as far as the results are concerned, Beagle 2 may have well crashed. The result of the mission would be the same. I guess the bright spot is that there is hope for the low-cost mission with a few tweaks. Does Beagle standard for anything other than the dog reference?

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

Does Beagle standard for anything other than the dog reference?

It was a tribute to the HMS Beagle, the ship that took Charles Darwin on his voyages and thus contributed to the theory of evolution.

[Merc14]

Well at least we now know the parachute to bouncing ball delivery system worked again and is very reliable.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Well at least we now know the parachute to bouncing ball delivery system worked again and is very reliable.

This method of landing had been proven to work before Beagle 2, having been used by NASA for the Mars Pathfinder/Sojourner mission in 1997.

We now know that Beagle 2 was the second successful use of this method as it landed 10 days before the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Spirit and 31 days before Opportunity.

This method is only reliable for small, light-weight missions though. For heavy vehicles such as the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity, in order to prevent the landing bags from bursting on imapct they would have to be so big and heavy that their weight and size would be prohibitive.