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...with the Beagle II?

( tongue firmly in cheek )

The Invader Forces are apparently still active on Mars and Venus, controlling "installations in Mongolia ... installations in the Pyrenees here on Earth, and there are installations down in the Mountains of the Moon in Africa which pick up, very often, people on death."

Looking at some technical details (click "Technology"), I get the impression that Beagle2 might be able to crawl over the surface.

The instrument arm is strong enough to lift the instrument package. This strength might be enough to let it push down firmly on the ground, maybe 10 cm away, and then pull itself forward.

Maybe it couldn't pull along all the solar cell parts, maybe it would have to leave them behind, connected through an electric cable.

There's nothing in the description of Beagle2 that suggests that they have thought of this possibility.

Sorry to reply to myself, but this comment gives a better layman's explanation of the distances involved.

Beagle 2 is far too far away from the rovers - it's one of the FAQs on the ESA site here.

BAD science reporter! BAD! no treat for you.

Actually, I think the article might be right - the total mass carried to Mars won't be the same as what enters the Martian atmosphere, thanks to there being various support equipment attached to the orbiter. Dodgy mass-to-weight calculations were probably never involved. :-)

The original Beagle 2 apparently had a mass of 65kg, probably including support equipment, so the new Beagle is over twice as massive.

It seems they really got the science instrumentation right for the old lander, so let's hope they get everything else working too. Instruments do have a tendency to fly on missions they weren't originally intended for - the camera on Mars Express, the High Resolution Stereo Camera (a mere 20.4kg) was originally designed for the ill-fated Russian Mars 96 probe, for example.

With a bit of luck, Beagle 2's successor will safely reach the surface of Mars in 2009, so the important work can start...

Looks like Beagle2 has been rediscovered ;)

I don't think you understand how these robots actually work. They could not have been debugged and fixed if they were "unfunctioning" or "unresponding".

The unfunctioning and unresponding rover would be the Beagle, the British one that disappeared without a trace...

IIRC, these have just had some minor obstacles to overcome... perhaps the poster of the article is just confused. =P

After all, they've only just figured out that it might not be such a good idea to drop a dead weight from almost 3 million km high and expect it to actually land safely.

Remember they had three redudant rovers (Spirit, Opportunity and Beagle 2)...

Beagle 2 wasn't a rover... Al.

Isn't the Mars Scorecard missing a player.

The Beagle 2 anyone?

More like an eighth of the mission. There's still plenty to do. It's a shame Beagle appears to have failed, because Pilinger's playing of the media focused the public's view of the mission solely on Beagle.

I do hate the way the JPL mission and the Mars Express missions have been compared in the media (or rather haven't been). They are really very different missions.
NASA spent their $820m getting two rovers to Mars.
ESA spent 300m. getting an orbiter to Mars, and sending a 35m lander to the surface.

Still, worst comes to the worst, the Mars success rate has been about 1 in 3, so Opportunity must be secretly rubbing it's robotic claws in glee.

But for now, we'll hope Spirit stays alive. And for the optimists out there, next attempt to contact Beagle is Sunday.

Something stuck to my mind regarding the frequency on which the ESA and NASA spacecraft operate (Beagle and Spirit), as said in a press conference by ESA on the Beagle situation (07-01). Apparently, they are both using the same frequency to phone home.
Now ofcourse this is for 99.99999% certain not true, but what if Spirit got a bit disturbed when it suddenly found it was receiving CRM-2 mode communication from the Beagle. Beagle's CRM-2 mode should be starting around now if it is still in one piece... It would be like a vague (different) television picture on a perfect TV-channel, but it could just be the case for Spirit to go loopy.
The timing is right, are the environmental conditions ... ?

Something stuck to my mind regarding the frequency on which the ESA and NASA spacecraft operate (Beagle and Spirit), as said in a press conference by ESA on the Beagle situation (07-01). Apparently, they are both using the same frequency to phone home.
Now ofcourse this is for 99.99999% certain not true, but what if Spirit got a bit disturbed when it suddenly found it was receiving CRM-2 mode communication from the Beagle. Beagle's CRM-2 mode should be starting around now if it is still in one piece... It would be like a vague (different) television picture on a perfect TV-channel, but it could just be the case for Spirit to go loopy.
The timing is right, are the environmental conditions ... ?

The beagle team response: I feel your pain

But I like my writeup better :P

"ghettoboy22 writes "Multiple news services are reporting the Martian Interplanetary Defence Force (MIDF) has successfully captured an extraterrestial craft codenamed "Spirit" on the outskirts of a small village in Lower Gusev province two days ago, coming on the heals of the successful downing of another invasion craft last month. Speculation has insued from Spirit's handlers on Earth who are suggesting the craft was hit with the much feared Martian "Cosmic Ray" computer viri, causing it to speak nothing but jibberish. No worries though - our buddies will have their work cut out for them when Spirit's sister-ship "Opportunity" makes it's decent from Martian orbit in T minus 58 hours!""

Well, there's going to be another attempt to contact the beagle 2 soon.

Presumably the AV writers don't want the search engines to be spammed with the word "beagle" when it's relevant to something else right now.

I guess this means Beagle has made contact with Earth after all. Perhaps it has to do with Martian hackers who don't like Linux? They can't spell too well though.

Yes. Let me eat my own words, I've stated here before that Beagle 2 was privately funded. It was not. It was originally meant to be privately funded, but that's not how it turned out. Still, it was a very cheap mission, considering the possible return value. Here is some more info on the funding, just click ... "Funding" :)

Anyway, IMHO it is likely that beagle landed upside down (thus having its antenna on the wrong side and not visible until Mars Express flies high enough above the horizon), or that something got broken. After all, beagle was not the most important part of the mission, so it did not have any redundant circuitry.

I suppose a lion or a horse might have more luck than a dog

You can check it here

And could someone post a torrent file?

Gee man, Beagle2 has already been scared into not uploading its Blur musical tune by the RIAA, you don't think NASA will risk antagonizing them too do you?

There are other uses for this sort of thing.
The shoesting budget on which it was created ($62M 40M pounds, for those of you across the pond) could have been better spent if the launch was cheaper.
Perhaps holding out hope would have better chances of paying off if they had another million that didn't go into fuel.
I feel that this sort of technology should be given lots of support. Projects like beagle2 define my favorite human drive, the drive to explore and learn. Just beacuse this could kill someone is no reason to dis it.

Quick list, by no means meant to be complete, just to give an impression of the differences between the missions:

Beagle 2: Lander, search for signs of past or present life on the planet surface
Mars Express: Orbiter, study atmosphere and surface with radar and spectrometers
Mars Rovers: 2 Landers, search for signs of past or present water (NASA's Follow The Water strategy)
Nozomi: Orbiter, study atmoshpere and interaction with solar wind. Mission failed.

The only way that Beagle 2 can achieve its mass goals is by having no redundancy in its electronics whilst relying on a robust and failure-tolerant design.

(From http://www.beagle2.com/technology/command.htm)

That's not good. Anything electronic failed, forget it...

From these animations, it appears that Mars is now littered with:

1) the heat-shield from its entry.
2) the first parachute and associated hardware.
3) the second, larger parachute and associated hardware.
4) the "cushioning bags".
5) some metal pieces as the machine opens.

I have no idea if Mars' atmosphere is thick enough to thoroughly burn up the myriad other parts that were disengaged during its descent, so that may be a whole raft of other crap in addition to what I have mentioned. Can't we spoil only one planet at a time?

According to the TV news the other day here (UK), Beagle 2 was the first craft to actually use a parachute on a Mars descent (the idea was to slow it down for an impact on the surface at 40mph or so).

I think most, if not all previous Mars landers have used parachutes as part of the landing process, but they had some form of retro-rockets as well - Beagle 2 had none.

Mars does has an atmosphere, and though it's thick enough for parachutes to be used to dump most of the kinetic energy remaining after the heat-shield's been jettisoned, it's still too thin for a nice, gentle touchdown without a huge parachute.

Beagle 2 must have been small and light enough to warrant the use of no rockets at all; ~70kg versus ~800kg for one of the upcoming Nasa rovers must make a big difference. Simpler may be better, but sadly it still sounds like something went wrong...

Viking landing
Pathfinder landing
Beagle 2 landing

The Mars Global surveyor passed over the landing site 20mins after the Beagle2 landed, the picture of the landing site is here here

This page has several photos of the landing site, showing the weather the day of the landing (it was fine) and also the famous "crater" within the landing zone: Beagle2 landing site photos

Its designed to correct itself if it arrives upside down (last para)

Easy. Go read about it. The lander is called Beagle 2. The website is at www.beagle2.com. It's not exactly rocket science to find out all the articles saying otherwise are bollocks.

For the lazy, the relevant paragraph says: "The solar cells are mounted on four deployable panels that fold out from within the lander as part of the automatic landing sequence."

Easy. Go read about it. The lander is called Beagle 2. The website is at www.beagle2.com. It's not exactly rocket science to find out all the articles saying otherwise are bollocks.

For the lazy, the relevant paragraph says: "The solar cells are mounted on four deployable panels that fold out from within the lander as part of the automatic landing sequence."

Perhaps you should read about Beagle2's power from the people who built it before spouting your half-arsed assumptions and feeding your latent Anglophobia. I'm assuming by your "dude" you are an American. You give your country a bad name.

Perhaps you should read about Beagle2's power from the people who built it before spouting your half-arsed assumptions and feeding your latent Anglophobia. I'm assuming by your "dude" you are an American. You give your country a bad name.

It is programmed to recharge them automatically...if the solar arrays properly opened. That said let's face facts, Beagle 2 is dead. And despite all the insipid 'pfft it was British what do you expect' jokes already posted to this story, I think this result should be marked as a very dissapointing and unfortunate outcome. Think of the scientists who have spent the past ~6 years of their lives working on this project (Collin Pillinger being the most notable). This must be positively crushing for them. The engineering on the lander was absolutely incredible, look at the design of the instruments Beagle2 carried, some of them are downright elegant; a tiny single chip radiation detector, a hot thin film wind speed and direction monitor, a fully functional gas chromatograph that could nearly fit in your hand, there is a dust sensor, UV sensors, microscope with multispectral LED illumination, a mossbauer spectrometer, an atmospheric gas oxidation sensor little more than a centimeter across, a subsurface burrowing mole, pressure and temperature sensors, and a high resolution CCD camera.

Contrast this with the NASA Mars Rovers' 3 experiments and the fact that all the science on Beagle2 had to be squeezed into less than ~100 Lb. while the Rovers weigh 10X that and there's no denying the unbelievable effort that the scientists and engineers must have put into its assembly.

This is a sad day for science that could have been, but also a testament to what could be done given limited resources and a small budget.

It is programmed to recharge them automatically...if the solar arrays properly opened. That said let's face facts, Beagle 2 is dead. And despite all the insipid 'pfft it was British what do you expect' jokes already posted to this story, I think this result should be marked as a very dissapointing and unfortunate outcome. Think of the scientists who have spent the past ~6 years of their lives working on this project (Collin Pillinger being the most notable). This must be positively crushing for them. The engineering on the lander was absolutely incredible, look at the design of the instruments Beagle2 carried, some of them are downright elegant; a tiny single chip radiation detector, a hot thin film wind speed and direction monitor, a fully functional gas chromatograph that could nearly fit in your hand, there is a dust sensor, UV sensors, microscope with multispectral LED illumination, a mossbauer spectrometer, an atmospheric gas oxidation sensor little more than a centimeter across, a subsurface burrowing mole, pressure and temperature sensors, and a high resolution CCD camera.

Contrast this with the NASA Mars Rovers' 3 experiments and the fact that all the science on Beagle2 had to be squeezed into less than ~100 Lb. while the Rovers weigh 10X that and there's no denying the unbelievable effort that the scientists and engineers must have put into its assembly.

This is a sad day for science that could have been, but also a testament to what could be done given limited resources and a small budget.

It is programmed to recharge them automatically...if the solar arrays properly opened. That said let's face facts, Beagle 2 is dead. And despite all the insipid 'pfft it was British what do you expect' jokes already posted to this story, I think this result should be marked as a very dissapointing and unfortunate outcome. Think of the scientists who have spent the past ~6 years of their lives working on this project (Collin Pillinger being the most notable). This must be positively crushing for them. The engineering on the lander was absolutely incredible, look at the design of the instruments Beagle2 carried, some of them are downright elegant; a tiny single chip radiation detector, a hot thin film wind speed and direction monitor, a fully functional gas chromatograph that could nearly fit in your hand, there is a dust sensor, UV sensors, microscope with multispectral LED illumination, a mossbauer spectrometer, an atmospheric gas oxidation sensor little more than a centimeter across, a subsurface burrowing mole, pressure and temperature sensors, and a high resolution CCD camera.

Contrast this with the NASA Mars Rovers' 3 experiments and the fact that all the science on Beagle2 had to be squeezed into less than ~100 Lb. while the Rovers weigh 10X that and there's no denying the unbelievable effort that the scientists and engineers must have put into its assembly.

This is a sad day for science that could have been, but also a testament to what could be done given limited resources and a small budget.

It is programmed to recharge them automatically...if the solar arrays properly opened. That said let's face facts, Beagle 2 is dead. And despite all the insipid 'pfft it was British what do you expect' jokes already posted to this story, I think this result should be marked as a very dissapointing and unfortunate outcome. Think of the scientists who have spent the past ~6 years of their lives working on this project (Collin Pillinger being the most notable). This must be positively crushing for them. The engineering on the lander was absolutely incredible, look at the design of the instruments Beagle2 carried, some of them are downright elegant; a tiny single chip radiation detector, a hot thin film wind speed and direction monitor, a fully functional gas chromatograph that could nearly fit in your hand, there is a dust sensor, UV sensors, microscope with multispectral LED illumination, a mossbauer spectrometer, an atmospheric gas oxidation sensor little more than a centimeter across, a subsurface burrowing mole, pressure and temperature sensors, and a high resolution CCD camera.

Contrast this with the NASA Mars Rovers' 3 experiments and the fact that all the science on Beagle2 had to be squeezed into less than ~100 Lb. while the Rovers weigh 10X that and there's no denying the unbelievable effort that the scientists and engineers must have put into its assembly.

This is a sad day for science that could have been, but also a testament to what could be done given limited resources and a small budget.

"We need to get Beagle 2 into a period when it can broadcast for a much longer period," said Professor Colin Pillinger.
"This will happen around the 4 January after the spacecraft has experienced a sufficient number of communication failures to switch to automatic transmission mode."
This means Beagle will then be transmitting permanently during daylight hours. And, by then, Mars Express will be in prime position to listen for its "baby".

from the Beagle2 site:

Communication frequency:

Return (Mars - Earth) 401MHz

Looking at an animation of the landing sequence, it strikes me that there are too many steps in the process. The failure of a single step would likely doom the thing. Things have to pop off at the right time, the parachute has to come out at the right time, it has to inflate 3 different airbags at the right time, and after landing and bouncing around, the 3 airbags have to all separate from the craft properly.

It seems Mars landings might be more smooth, predictable, and time-tested if a standard landing platform was created instead of reinventing a new one for each mission, as has been done. One might have to divide instruments into two or more separate landers to keep the per-probe size consistent, but at least it would increase the odds of a successful landing it seems to me. With something this complicated, you need to introduce more consistency so that a fixed technique can be perfected over time. Imagine what would happen if each Apollo lander was almost entirely redesigned for each moon mission.

Beagle 2's official site.

Space.com's Mars Rover section.

European Space Agency's Mars Express website.

And, find out here what options they have to communicate with beagle

more stuff from the Beagle 2 weblog

Listening out for Beagle 2
The 76m Lovell Telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory is ready to try and find Beagle 2 on Christmas evening. At 10:40 pm GMT Beagle 2 will begin to transmit an on/off sequence each minute - like very slow Morse Code - and about nearly 9 minutes later the signals should reach Earth. The transmitter power, at 5 watts, is little more than that of a mobile phone, but the team at Jodrell Bank have installed a very sensitive receiver to pick up the Beagle 2 frequency. See more details on the Jodrell Bank website>

Betting on Life on Mars
Ladbrokes, the bookmaker, has cut its odds of finding life on Mars from 33-1 to 25-1 after a flurry of bets following the successful separation of Beagle 2 from Mars Express. Whilst these might not be true odds, the firm has taken the decision to minimise payouts in case Beagle 2 finds any evidence. Bets have been placed on the "Life on Mars" outcome since 1969. Link to Times story

he said on the resources page, which definatly looks pink to me.
http://www.beagle2.com/resources/index.htm

25th Dec 02:54 GMT Beagle 2 lands on Mars

They were basically told 'hey, want to send a probe? it's got to be ready next week and weigh less than X kg' so they had to rush it.

See the official History

OK, so they had 5 1/2 years from 'hang on lads, I've got an idea' to launch date - but NASA usually take a lot longer than that to design, develop and test probes.

So they're taking a gamble, on the basis that it's better to try and fail than never try. And if it works, it'll be fantastic.

Mark

Just a quick FYI: the actual landing site name is Isidis Planitia. (Don't click the resources link unless you like pink...)

As an artist, I'm especially interested in the artistic ambitions of the Beagle 2 mission. They plan to play a song by Blur for the Martians and use a Damien Hirst painting to calibrate the spectrometers. Seems to be a well-rounded adventure.