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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."
That's so 1976...
Je t'aime Stéphanie
I wish the Beagle 2 in particular the very best of luck. Britain has never really pulled its weight in ESA, leaving France, Germany and Italy to pay for most things; a successful Mars lander bearing the Union flag could well change all that. Mars Express as a whole was done on a small budget, and Beagle was hacked together from the money that could be found down the back of the national sofa; if they succeed, imagine what could be achieved with some _real_ money...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Let's hope the ESA engineers haven't been barkin' up the wrong tree.
Beagle 2 is Britain's first planetary space probe and designed specifically to look for life using the most advanced techniques currently available.
In the best British tradition the probe will lay out a tea set and some cucumber sandwiches to attract alien lifeforms.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
...to hearing Tom Brokaw proudly state that "Nasa has just sent a probe to Uranus!"
Not sure if this is a good idea in regards to future slashdotting, but there is going to be a webcam showing the proceedings.
...to hearing Tom Brokaw proudly state that "Nasa has just sent a probe to Uranus!"
Prior to this, the name Uranus will be changed to Urectum.
I was going to watch the launching from the ESA site.... /. I may simply forgot about it:-/
Now with the link to the streaming page published on
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
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
People of Earth, hear us. We, the people of mars, grow tired of your repetetive probings!
You must cease and desist with this probing, especially with one named after a dog. (We've watched what your dogs do on your planet, and have no wish to undergo the same "leg" treatment.)
And you must stop this photography of our martian mounds. This blatant harrassment will only lead to a hostile relationship between us.
Perhaps with some beating, and bondage thrown in...
krystal_blade... No martians were harmed during the posting of this comment....
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
It is now 13:05 CEST.
So what the hell are you talking about?
"Son, in a sporting event, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get" - Homer J. Simpson
One way tickets start at 2,000,000,000 Euros. Get them while they last.
"Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
You seem to overlook the fact that a lot of very intelligent people who are well capable of learning from their own and the mistakes of others work on these projects. Its think it is far too cynical to assume there will be blunders just because there was a previous mixup. the ESA has a long history of successful collaboration on projects so why should this one be any different. I certainly hope this mission is successful and we get more useful data on Mars
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
In addition to these missions, also keep an eye on the NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan, arriving later this year, as well as ESA's SMART-1 mission to the moon to be launched soon. Future plans include NASA's Mercury Messenger, and ESA's Venus Express and Bepi-Columbo.
Reception frequency: 10832 MHz
Polarisation: Horizontal
Symbol rate: 22 Msymb/s
FEC: 5/6
Service ID: 61950
Service name: ESA
TXT: none
Start of launch transmission: 19:15 CEST (17:15 GMT/UT)
Martian Overlord: What happen? .... Bzzzt Chirp!
Engineering Drone: Somebody set up us three probes.
Signals Drone: We get signal.
Martian Overlord: What!
Signals Drone: Main screen turn on.
Martian Overlord: It's You !!
Beagle: How are you gentlemen !!
Beagle: All your base are belong to us probes.
Beagle: You are on the way to destruction.
Martian Overlord: What you say !!
Beagle: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Beagle: HA HA HA HA
Martian Overlord: Take off every 'zig'!!
Martian Overlord: You know what you doing.
Martian Overlord: Move 'zig'.
Martian Overlord: For great justice.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
You seem to overlook the fact that all those intelligent people are governed by international bureaucrats :-). Yes, I am a bit cynical about vast and incredibly inefficient agencies like NASA or ESA, but - contrary to you? - I see their history as a history of waste, corruption and bad management, with some occasional sucess stories. It could be the case of "is the glass half-full or rather half-empty", but I wouldn't say that SA has a long history of successful collaboration. I would rather say something quite contrary.
First of all, ESA's history is relatively short. The whole 1960's in Europe is a period of international conflict about European space research. First there was the ESRO (E. Space Research Organization), that was at various stages boycotted by various European states, among them Britain and Italy. Europe managed to develop launcher rockets Europe-1 and Europe-2, that were nothing but technical misunderstanting from the day one, but the old continent could not scrape anything better
Then in the early 1970's ESA was formed from the smoking pile of ashes that was now the remnants of the ESRO. ESA devoted most of its efforts to the creation of a new launcher - Ariane. This is also not exactly what I would call a success story. Every fourth launch of the latest revision of Ariane results in a pictoresque KA-BOOOOOM! And that is after almost 30 years of development!
So yes - I am a cynical about that all, but I think I have damn good reasons for it.
I'm serious here.
I know many of you hate us, and have even wished us ill-will recently, but rest assured, I don't hate you, and I wish you the best of luck in this endeavor.
New York, out...
Actually, Cassini will enter Saturn's orbit on July 1, 2004.
Actually, the reason why Mars Express is being launched was the fact the highly ambitious Mars 96 probe (which carried many of the same experiments that Mars Express carries) failed due to a rocket booster upper stage failure.
This is why Mars Express is a much smaller spacecraft, small enough to rely on the well-proven launch rocket that carries the Soyuz spacecraft to orbit.
I was not going to enter this pan global slanging match but i have decided to lay down my 2 cents worth (or euros or pence or whatever)
The Europeans are as bad as the Americans except they dont get on the high horse about unlike the post that this is attached to....
it is also unfair to compare schroeder to bush, the reasons why the europeans hate bush is he is a war mongering idiot that could not outwit a yoghurt, but for the same reason people hate blair becuase he is a sycophantic war mongering manipulative little tit who generally goes against the wishes of the people that voted him in.
The idea that Euro's hate US is the stupid, almost as stupid as US hating Euro's, the only differnce is americans take it too heart too easily and euro's keep on going on and and on about.
all sides, shut up sit down admit every population has its faults (im my case spellin) and either lighten up or go to a slightly less intellectual web site to spout your zenophobic bollocks.
While off topic i would like to bring it back straight on line and say, yeeee! mars the more info the better
S
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
Ah, blaming people for the crimes of their ancestors - nice to see how we have moved on.
I personally hate the Italians as they invaded my country in 300 BC. I also hate the Normans, the Angles, the Saxons and anyone else who oppressed the brave Celts. I would take it out on their descendants and hate them - if only I could work out who they were...
Probably LESS of these errors: for one, European scientists are much more comfortable with multilingual / multicultural projects, and for two, they're more diligent about looking for them because it's almost expected to find some, as you say.
Unix does not prevent you from doing stupid things; that would also prevent you from doing clever things.
Cost. The budget was extremely tight and Russia launch cheaper than ESA, even for ESA-run missions. It's a pretty strange state of affairs.
The use of the U.K. Blue Streak launcher by the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) was probably a mistake, but as the basis for developing launcher tech it wasn't a bad start; remember Europe didn't have the experience the US had through the Gemini program and effectively was starting from scratch, since the native expertise was whisked off to the US after WWII to work of the US space program.
I think you'll find that Ariane 4 was actually one of the most successful launchers around.
Had the Cluster project not chosen take to get a free ride on an unqualified launcher, no one would have given a rat's ass about Ariane 501. Unfortunately Arianespace started to believe their own PR...
ESA have always had a small fraction of the budget available to NASA; on that basis they've rather well really.
Please remain calm, there is no reason to pani... wait, where are you all going?
Maybe not as efficient as a private company, but since there is no data on the efficiency of private compnaies organising a space program, we may never know.
<P>
Boeing's Sea Launch initiative ought to give us this information within a few years.
</p>
I didn't know this at first, so I thought it might help. The launch time is 12:15 pm in EST. Very soon now.
Maybe, until they want independence. We'll end up levying taxes against them, they'll not like it, and before you know it "The Redccoats are coming!" :)
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
> The launch will be streamed^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^Mslashdotted over the Web by ESA
---
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Must-not-watch TV!
Translation: "Our Secret Soviet Weather control machine is working perfectly. Now, where are Moose and Squirrel?"
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
It's amazing what all these first world countries can do. Wish my country was still in the space business.
Regarding our announcer: It's good to see that the Swedish Chef has gotten work since his Muppet days. (Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut up.)
Seriously, though, I am overjoyed to see this. If all goes well over the next few months/years, it's only going to get more exciting.
Good luck to the venture and everyone involved with it.
looks like the site for the video feed was slashdotted at T minus 1:30 :(
Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps. -- Emo Phillips
The launch went fine. MEx is in Earth orbit. The first major maneuver will be at 20:15 GMT/UT.
One notable cock-up was the UK's ITN news channel which had been advertising it's live coverage of the launch all day and just as it happened it cut to a commerical break. Professional journalism indeed. Fortunately the other stations also covered it.
..many people that tried to watch this ... I got sound and some pictures in between.. =/
Well Best of luck to ESA. I myself is from Sweden so I really hope this will work out fine.
I really HAD another userid
Ariane rockets are run by Arianespace, technically a private organisation, though its main shareholders are various European governments, mainly the French. ESA is a separate organisation, and if the Russians or Americans can launch their payloads more cheaply than Arianespace then there's no reason why ESA shouldn't go with them.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
The ESA website states that "Beagle 2 will land in an equatorial region that was probably flooded in the past, and where traces of life may have been preserved."
What I wonder is how likely these areas actually were flooded.
I know they say there is a fair amount of forzen water on mars but other than that and the fact it "looks" like surface shaped by water, do they have any other proof of this? I am not trying to say that there were no oceans, im just wondering how they came up with "probably". I thought the scientists used the term "possibly" when talking about water on mars?
True ravers don't need drugs
The link for Soyuz-Fregat ist /. :)
http://www.orbireport.com/Launchers/Soyuz_U-Frega
Interestingly enough, it's a new generation of launchers (well, an incremental upgrade
that IIRC were first used in 2000.
-DVK
"The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
They are running replays of the launch for those interested.
Seems less slashdotted right now.
I really HAD another userid
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.
on first round in 2002, a slightly higher score than what his party usually gets.
What shocked the other 83%, as well as many of Le Pen supporters themselves, is the fact that it was the second highest score behind Chirac (19.9%), thus qualifiyng him for the second round against Chirac.
The reason for this was the unusually high number of candidates: sixteen. Second round came out 18% for Le Pen and 82% for Chirac (results)
I think that unlike Austria, this doesn't qualify for "almost". Goes to say that the US is not the only country to have a twisted election system.
Textbook launch - well, that's what you expect from Soyuz - and now the departure from Earth orbit has succeeded as well.
Fingers crossed. Hopefully there will be some wide smiles round about Christmas this year when we hear that "The Beagle has landed". (No offense whatever intended to the US lunar program: I saw the tv broadcasts of the first landing in the early hours of the morning when I was still at university.)
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.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
There's also the small matter of reliability. The Russian rockets just work, every time.
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
Soyuz has the Fregat.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Soyouz-fregat rockets are exclusively run by Starsem, which is a joint European (Arianespace, EADS) and Russian (rosaviacosmos) venture. Actually, the european fundings for the modernized ikar, and then fregat stages have been essential for the completion of the program.
So technically, the ESA is not really phasing out Arianespace...
At least I thought the joke was funny..
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
Are you forgetting Mars '96, which was launched from Baikonur and crashed into the pacific ocean? Russia's track record for Mars missions is pretty appauling; so much so that I was pretty nervous during launch. Russia have had some great successes sending missions to Venus and the Moon, but their Mars missions just keep getting lost, blowing up, crashing, etc.