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Japanese Mars Probe Failing
Anonymous Coward writes "After months of silence and a week of hopeful half-truths, Japanese space officials have finally confirmed that their Mars-bound Nozomi probe is teetering on the brink of failure in its five-year quest to explore the Red Planet. The Nozomi orbiter is one of four spacecraft that are due to converge on Mars in the next two months. The other three probes -- the European Space Agency's Mars Express and NASA's two Mars Exploration Rovers -- are still on track and in good working order, according to the latest status reports. Mars Express is due to enter Martian orbit on Christmas Day and send a British-built Beagle 2 lander to the surface, while the NASA rovers should arrive on Jan. 3 and Jan. 24."
...will it commit harakiri?
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
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From the article:
Friday's JAXA statement denied one Tokyo press report that probe was doomed to impact Mars and possibly contaminate the planet. Such a scenario would violate an international "space quarantine" treaty.
I know we've had a lot of cool reports that microbes have survived exposure to hard vacuum for extended periods, but do we really have to worry about "contaminating" Mars? The craft was probably sterilized pretty well before being launched. Then, a year and a half ago, it got hit with a solar flare strong enough to make it miss Mars the first time... that should have baked any hitchiking bugs pretty well. And then, there's the latest round of Solar hiccups to take into account.
Finally, if the craft does hit Mars, it's going to do it in a totally uncontrolled manner -- 'cause if they get any control, they'll steer it away. That implies a high velocity, which even in the thin Martian atmosphere should melt the craft into slag.
Extremophile bacteria at molten sulfur vents is one thing, but hitchiking in a blob of ablating steel?
And as far as that "space quarantine" treaty... what exactly is the punishment for sneezing in space?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
So hopefully the British rover will have tea ready for us when we get there. Jolly good.
"I only speak the truth"
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I keep thinking about those fish that live in caves that we believed were blind from birth, but were actually blinded by our observations, which required orders of magnitude of light more than they were ever accustomed to. Who knows how much Earth biology survives in these probes when they crash land?
Maybe we should put a halt to sending out any more of these things for now and work more on passive observation techniques.
Or maybe Mars is a long way away and it's really hard to build a machine that can be expected to work for months on end whilst being baked and simultaneously frozen after being placed in a vacuum and bombarded with radiation. Then to put this complicated device on top of hundreds of tonnes of high explosive so that you can get it moving fifteen times faster than a rifle bullet with the objective of placing it somewhere near a body only slightly larger than the Moon?
Best wishes,
Mike.
At least there's quite a bit of redundancy with the martian probes. With four going there at once it's quite likely that at least one of them will get there.
The martian probe success rate is so bad that maybe space agencies should launch multiple smaller ones with the expectancy that some will fail to reach their destination than put all their hopes on one larger probe.
If someone sterilized the bird with something like chlorine monoxide it's a different matter, but I've seen nothing about this and an orbiter wouldn't normally need to be sterilized like a lander. That's why Galileo met its fiery end.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
If Mars Express fails to shoot Beagle 2 into space, the retro-engine will not have enough thrust to brake Mars Express into Martian orbit. Both probes would then fly past the planet and into solar orbit.
Beagle 2 then travels through space for six days before hitting the Martian atmosphere at interplanetary velocity. Beagle 2's onboard transmitter will not come to life until the probe impacts the surface, so you can imagine that those six days will be pretty tense for the ESA teams.
All being well, Beagle 2 and Mars Express should arrive at their destinations safe and well in the small hours of Christmas morning. By the time we're opening our presents here in the UK, they should have received a signal from the Martian surface.
So, here's hoping!
Best wishes,
Mike.
Does anyone have any hard data on the statistics of spacecraft survival for all known Mars missions? Am I incorrect?
This is going to be the best episode of Batttlebots ever!
I guess I'll just stick with their VCR's and TV's.
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