Beagle II spotted on Mars?

[yevaud]

<b>Beagle 2 probe 'spotted' on Mars</b><br /><br />By Pallab Ghosh <br />BBC science correspondent <br /><br /><br /><i>The scientist behind the British Beagle 2 mission to the Red Planet says the craft may have been found in pictures of the Martian surface. <br /><br />Colin Pillinger says the images suggest the mission very nearly worked, but Beagle somehow failed to contact Earth. <br /><br />He thinks the craft may have hit the ground too hard - as the atmosphere was thinner than usual because of dust storms in that region of Mars. <br /><br />This may have damaged onboard instruments, preventing the call home. <br /><br />The Beagle 2 lead scientist has been painstakingly studying images of the landing site in search of his spacecraft ever since it was lost on Christmas Day two years ago. <br /><br />Now, he says, specially processed pictures from the camera on the US space agency's (Nasa) Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft show that it came down in a crater close to the planned landing site.</i><br /><br />Full Story <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[siarad]

If it landed but failed then a design change is needed but if it just hit too hard, the NASA landers were blown off course, then the design may be re-usable & the landing gear changed, it always seemed dodgy to me.<br />But the problem remains which of these.

 

[CalliArcale]

siarad, we're not talking about a NASA lander at all. Beagle 2 was built and operated by the British Planetary Society and delivered to Mars by ESA's Mars Express. You're probably thinking of Mars Polar Lander, which had landing legs and is believed to have failed due to a design problem.<br /><br />This new data about Beagle 2, by contrast, suggests that it did not fail due to a design problem or even a technical problem. It suggests it just had really rotten luck. First of all, a dust storm may have reduced the density of Mars' atmosphere in the landing ellipse, causing it to decend faster than planned. Secondly, possibly due to hitting the steep slope of a crater wall on the first impact, it may have ended up on its side instead of its bottom, which could've prevented its lid from opening properly. So, not a problem with landing gear -- a problem with the landing site. This is a quiet fear of all mission teams behind landers. It's not possible to sufficiently survey the landing site in advance, and even if it were, it's not possible to aim them well enough to avoid small hazards yet. Consider, for instance, that Opportunity's "hole in one" was complete luck; nobody even knew the tiny crater was there until they got the decent imager data, because it's so small. It could just as easily have ended in the same sort of silent failure as Beagle 2. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Reposted on behalf of micro10:<br /><br />Pictures from wreckage of probe should show a in atmosphere landing calculation error.. Trojectory from any crafts landing on mars surface is a delicate calculations in that any object coming into surface area is much faster giving mars atmosphere and surface. Now this is where Nasa could better use a laser pulse guidance system for a better smoother landing.. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[siarad]

shuttle_guy<br />Parchutes & air bags

 

[siarad]

The reference to NASA was within commas, you misread <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> indicating the poor atmospheric conditions pushing landers downrange as was Beagle 2

 

[yevaud]

Responding to Micro10:<br /><br />The best guidance in the world won't prevent what they believe happened here. Unusual winds pushed the entering Beagle off target. Those high reentry speeds don't allow much latitude to correct during descent either, even if it was possible. And to my understanding, it wasn't. There's no provision here for correcting your reentry path once en route. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>