Mars Express launch today

mikerich writes "The European Space Agency and the Russian Space Agency will launch the Mars Express spaceprobe today using a Soyuz-Fregat out of Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Launch is scheduled for 17.45 UT (18.45 BST), so far all preparations have gone smoothly and the forecast is excellent. The launch will be streamed over the Web by ESA. Mars Express consists of two components, a large Martian orbiter which will be searching for sub-surface water and studying the Martian atmosphere. Its seven science packages have been built by teams from Europe, Russia, the United States, Japan, and China. Amongst the science packages is a radar for studying geological structures. Mars Express will map most of the planet in high-resolution colour stereoscopic 3D and perform a high-resolution mineralogical survey of the planet. Mars Express is also carrying the tiny Beagle 2 lander designed by a team led by Professor Colin Pillinger of the Open University. Beagle 2 is Britain's first planetary space probe and designed specifically to look for life using the most advanced techniques currently available. For those in the UK, the story of Beagle 2 is being told on BBC 2 on Monday 2nd June at 23:20." Dan B. writes "The BBC is running an article on the European 'Mars Express', Europe's first interplanetary rocket. This is the first of three probes heading to the Red Planet this Summer, as it nears it's closest point from the Earth in thousands of years."

Comments

Re:Beagle, ESA and .uk

[Jez]

Colin Pillinger was one of the originators of the "faster, cheaper, better" way of developing space probes. He had to be, because there's just no way that ESA could follow the NASA model of ever bigger, more expensive projects. I worked in his lab, back when Beagle2 and Cassini were just starting to be talked about. 2003 seemed so far off. It's amazing that it's actually here, and built, and ready to go.

Re:Beagle, ESA and .uk

[aallan]

A frugal scientist with twice as much funding may not be any more productive than a frugal scientist with his current budget.

Being a frugal British scientist working on a a tight budget I can tell you that while this may be true in some cases, just taking the stress of being so close to the wire away could mean that some people can get more science done. Heck I just blew the last three weeks writing grant proposals, very little science (or anything else, including sleep) got done during that time. For this I got a PhD?

Al.

Re:Beagle, ESA and .uk

[corleth]

As someone based in the UK but having worked in the US from time to time, I have to say that my US colleagues, at least in planetary science, spend more time writing research proposals than we do. Their proposals are simply much longer and more in-depth than UK ones; more akin to EC Framework projects. That being said, their proposals more likely to get funded, and funded well.

Agreed about the tight budget thing though. It would be nice, just for once, to have a budget that allowed me to just buy, for example, extra memory for my computer as and when I needed it.

Re:Good luck Europe!

[golgotha007]

If I were to move, I'd live in one of the former Russian colonies (Czech Republic would be nice), where they haven't been free long enough to become arrogant, and where American pop culture hasn't penetrated very far.

well i can tell you that you're not going to find what you're looking for. i moved to Saint Petersburg, Russia 3 months ago (born and raised in Calfornia). when i'm in a busy public place, i don't dare utter a single english word in fear that i will be jumped immediately.

hell, even the MacDonalds down the street was broken into and vandalized in protest against the Americans...

George W was here 2 days ago. they limited where he could go outside because of fear of sniper fire...

Re:Beagle, ESA and .uk

[j-b0y]

Actually, they're aimed at being much cheaper, Rosetta, Mars Express and Venus Express use/will use the same platform and control system, Rosetta and Mars Express share the same Flight Control Team and support staff.

This may not sound like a big deal, but it can really cut down on the cost

Re:Most intense period of planetary exploration ev

[Ella the Cat]

Drivel. Why is natural good? Disease is natural, old age is natural, dinosaur killing asteroids are natural, eating your offspring is natural. Any intelligent spacefaring species worth its salt would consider primitive spaceprobes cute and worthy of a pat on the head. As for the "scientists should think" remark, tell me I had a sense of humour failure and you're trolling, because the alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

User manual...

[ctid]

I hope there are still some people reading, but not enough to slashdot this site. I was mooching around the Beagle 2 mission site and found a link to Starsem, the Russian company that provided the launcher. They have the user manual for the Soyuz-Fregat launcher online!! How cool is that? Caution, it's an 8MB download.