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Mars Crater Theory Tries To Explain Missing Beagle
JayBonci writes "CNN is running a piece regarding the failure of the Beagle Mars probe being possibly attributed to a crater landing. It's an interesting story about the variety of forensics being used to try and pick up on the lost craft."
[homer] D'oh [/homer]
Kiss it goodbye, wait for the next one.
Manhours are better spent in the future, rather than the past.
...that scientists wouldn't carefully scrutinize possible landing points for this craft. Or do the distances involved in space travel not allow for this? If so, I'm surprised we haven't lost more spacecrafts to big craters, gorges, rocks, etc.
It was aliens. We know they don't want us poking around their planet and are shooting down our probes. Time to take a hint. I think the Venusians are less hostile anyway.
No no, see he did it.
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
I don't think that's the way to bet somehow.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"I mean, if it landed hard enough to make a crater, I'm sure it probably stopped working entirely! ;)
You are not the customer.
Would that make it the longest hole-in-one in History?
R.It says it was a "recently discovered crater". I trust it wasn't caused by the impact from Beagle2 crash-landing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3354271.stm
Comic Theory:
Marvin the Martian just got a new barbecue grill for Christmas.
Conspiracy Theory:
World governments chipped in to send the barbecue grill to Marvin so as to appease the martian and prevent a loud Earth-shattering Kaboom!
Solution:
Get Duck Dodgers to get our grill back.
It takes that much time to lose one of those Mars probes, I mean from earth to mars it still does take more than overnight trip to get to, that people will have time to build new ones before they even know they lost the latest probe...
-Is the meaning of life vanity, or is vanity the meaning of life?
From the article:
While they cannot make out the ship itself, the image shows a 1 km (0.62 mile) wide crater at the center of the 70 by 10 km (43.5 by 6 mile) target area near the Martian equator, Pillinger said. It is possible, although unlikely, that the Beagle may be unable to communicate because it landed in the crater, he said.
"This would be an incredibly unlucky situation," he said.
So, according to the theory, the probe didn't make a crater, it landed in one. Just to make things clear.
But it could have crashed too.
"It is possible, although unlikely, that the Beagle may be unable to communicate because it landed in the crater, he said."
Speculations, speculations...
#include <nasty_disease.h>
("preview wha...?")
1) Fell into a crater?! Come on! The landing area was intentionally selected to be free of any obstructions.. It's a goddamn flood plane. An area near the equator specifically selected to be as flat, and as crater-free as possible! The lander is about as likely to be sitting in the bottom of a crater as Michael Jackson's shoulder is likely to be dislocated. Zero.
2) You get what you pay for. British engineering jokes aside (*cough*)fighterplanesmadeoutofwood(*cough), the airbags they were originally going to use on the lander failed. Their last-minute replacement wasn't even tested.
Bowie J. Poag
I didn't think NASA spent any money on this mission. It was funded by the UK (or the EU).
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
IANAE(ngineer), but if the Beagle cannot send or receive any data, is it programmed it to keep working, e.g. collect soil samples, even if it is cut off from communication, or will it simply sit dead if cannot send or receive signals?
And if this cost millions(?) of dollars to create, just to get stuck in a hole, how hard would it have been to program it to move around, and try to get somewhere where its communications would work?
Browse at -1, because trolls are often the most creative part of
Yes, because bacteria and other life forms that develop in extreme conditions can offer interesting information on how life develops. (As well as more practical uses in medicine, as they probably have some unique and hopefully applicable properties.)
The Beagle 2 spacecraft was a European effort. NASA didn't build it.
On the other hand, NASA has two spacecraft on the way to Mars right now. The first one will land on January 3rd.
Cross your fingers.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
This is the big boy way of saying "my dog ate my homework"
Heh.
I'm betting on a 1 km wide crater, containing a much smaller beagle-sized crater.
Either that or there's a Martian museum somewhere on the planet with all our spacecraft in it.
It's a dimple you insensitive clod!
This is an exciting time for Mars exporation with two rovers and a Beagle arriving over the period of a month or so.
Unfortunately the Beagle 2 seems to have followed the Simplified Planetary Local Approach Trajectory that has been so popular with recent Mars landers.
This is quite depressing, but Beagle 2 was a bit of a shoestring mission from the beginning. There's a reasonable chance that one of the NASA rovers will survive, though this is by no means a sure thing.
Even ignoring the technical challenge of having everything work perfectly, the landscape of Mars is quite capable of swallowing up one of these landers without a trace. A poorly placed pile of rocks or a deep gully and you're history.
I think that eventually we will have to send people to Mars, not because of the scientific reasons but just to satisfy our curiosity about what actually happened to all these lost landers.
G.
or more likely, something went wrong during whatever sequence of actions the probe was supposed to follow, and the only theory involved is Murphy's law.
...
It sounds to me like these guys are trying to shift the blame away from the probe, and therefore from them. But really, why should they not admit it's a cockup? there's nothing wrong in admitting a Mars probe failed, it's already quite an achievement to send man-made things there, and it's understood that there are risks involved, and that there's a very real probability that the mission will fail. There's no shame in that.
These guys tried their best and it didn't work. It's not like they tried to hide their failure of clipping their toenails or something
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
"We'd have to be incredibly unlucky that it went right down this crater"
You just know it's down there now. Even if it wasn't already, you just know it started tumbling down there the very moment those words left his lips...
For that matter, how do these guys know that the probe didn't just land on a group of boulders and end up tilted on the side, or flipped over, or stuck in a crevace between two boulders? I thought perhaps they did surveys of the landing site, but after this story, if they didn't even know within miles of where it was landing, I don't know how they could deal with smaller details like rock outcroppings...
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Curse you, Red Planet!
Curse you and your kind!
Curse the evil that causes this unhappiness!
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Those airbag things look pitiful.
Why not combine the airbags with some parachutes? Parachutes work fine to land living humans in the Soyuz capsules. Is there something about the Martian atmosphere that would prevent this?
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
I think what they meant to say, is it hit THE CREATOR... It's gods way of telling us to stay on the damn planet he made for us :)
Wouldnt you like to be a pepper too?
So does Taco Bell owe me a freebie now?
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
So what they're telling us is essentially:
Beagle2 is sent into orbit by EU.
Beagle2 rides EU's rocket.
Beagle2 cratered.
Beagle2 disconnected.
EU: anyone there?
Now, my knowledge of astronomy and all related things extends about as far as "Look. The moon!", but if you can get shots of the crater like this, then how can the probe be "buried" in the crater so far as to not be able to communicate? We're lookin' right into it, there.
Was that photo from Earth? Was that photo from another probe? Do we never see that view from Earth?
Seems like the damn thing just broke. Admit it.
You know what?
Isn't the fact that they selected the landing site BEFORE noticing a 1km large crater an indication that they've got the cart before the horse? Perhaps they should try thouroughly mapping the planet from low orbit before landing on it!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I'm curious as to what the resolution of all those cameras currently orbiting Mars is. Since the CIA can read my license plate from space by now, they must be able to spot a 1m object?
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Jeez, somebody loses their dog and they blame a crater on Mars.
I mean, in say 300 years, when people are living on mars, will they be able to find old probes intact? and laugh at crap we sent up there Just a thought
No, it will land on a crater. *tadabump*.
I have wondered for a while on the logic and wisdom behind the Beagle mission. I found the idea of sending a 60kg lander without any guidance boosters or rockets, no matter how small, an incredibly bad idea. The probe seperated 3 million kilometers away from the planet and then carried on to mars and atmostpheric entry without any possibility of attitude or course correction. Just think about it, 3 million kilometers and even the smallest of deviations of attitude could have meant the probe arriving in the atmosphere on its side or even upside down.
I somehow think that it probably arrived with an incorrect entry attitude and then burnt up on entry.
Perhaps the next time around they'll add a few kilograms to the package for small attitude coreectional motors.
Beagle2 where are you!
I am really confused! I saw this same article on slashdot at 8am CST mon. 29th with the link being to Space.com and not CNN or BBC. Naturally I read the article at 8am. Well nothing has changed in 8 hours and now the work day is done. Can anyone confirm the dupe and deletion of the other article?
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
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
(Martian with a shotgun:) "aluhgt!" (xlation: Pull!)
(a few minutes later, back in the UK,ESA launch director:) "Launch!"
(several days later, surface of Mars:) KA-BLAM! (xlation: KA-BLAM!)
(Beagle pieces gently drift down toward the Martian surface...)
Did you actually believe my statement, considering it's content, would be topical?
./revolution
"Hey, you fucked up... you trusted us!" -- Animal House
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHN!
Quick...contact Captain Scarlet!
My feeling is that the thing landed upside down (maybe rolled down the crater wall?) and it doesn't have an antennae pointing up at the sky.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Why can't they just buddy up to NASA and have them send the mars rover out looking for it?
the crater was there before landing: http://www.beagle2.com/resources/down-crater3.htm
Sadly the Beagle team didn't have access to bottomless pits of money and didn't have any choice about the launch date.
They had a hard enough time raising the money ( themselves ) as it was. I am sure they tested the probe as thoroughly as they possibly could before it was launched.
That being the case it was a case of either give it a go with what they had or not give it a go at all.
Maybe with a high profile person such as yourself ( anonymous coward ) in charge this the whole thing would have been a roaring success, I guess we'll never know will we ?
It's right next to Tim Robbins' dessicated corpse ...
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
"Stop tossing your junk onto my planet! Oh it makes me so very angry!"
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
IIRC if the airbags didn't deploy, it would have hit the ground at ~60 MPH.
If the chute didn't... ??? 600mph?
Cratered.
I think that was the first assumption...
The martians aren't stupid. They know what the europeans did to the american indians. They are not about to let ANYTHING with a flag, or possibility of a flag, land on their planet.
Europeans have this anoying habit of showing up, sticking a flag in something, and proclaiming that they have discovered it. This of course iritates the people already there as they felt that maybe they discovered it first. Where upon the europeans point out that they do not have a flag and that they are disqualified on that technicality. Then they shot them. Martians are just doing what the indians should have done to columbuss. Thats not a crater, thats a barbecue pit and the martians are about to have beagle fricassee.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
Scientists have now set up a "tiger team" of top experts to work through all possible reasons for the silence.
Isn't it easily predictable that the probe might not "phone home". Why do they wait until after it happens to figure out why this might be? Why not deal with likely scenarious ahead of time to minimize their risk of happening?
To me, this was exactly the problem with one of NASA's earlier Mars missions, where the prevailing post-failure theory was that the descent rocket shut down prematurely due to a software glitch. I just cannot understand why NASA, in this case, did not more thoroughly investigate possible scenarios where there was no post-landing communication with the proble and discover the software flaw before hand.
I know that its easy to second guess the engineers, and that figuring out why a problem might happen in advance of it happening is not easy, but these are rocket scientists and the time for their questions is before a failure occurs, not after it.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
to call some animal shelters. I'm sure he'll turn up or wander home in a few days.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
O where O where has my little dog gone? O where O where can he be?...
But really, why should they not admit it's a cockup? there's nothing wrong in admitting a Mars probe failed, it's already quite an achievement to send man-made things there, and it's understood that there are risks involved, and that there's a very real probability that the mission will fail.
I suspect a lot of people in power (Democrat and Republican) view NASA as an incredible waste of money that could be better spent buying useless new weapons systems, or funding another impingement on the US Constitution. IMO, the only reasons NASA still has funding at all are the economic spinoffs to the areospace sector, and the fact that it serves as a distraction to divert the public eye from far more wasteful and incompetent government agencies.
Any open admission of a "cockup" would be handing NASA's enemies another nail in its coffin, an excuse for more funding cutbacks resulting in more failure-prone shoestring missions, thus continuing the cycle until NASA is nothing but a guy who goes around to schools telling the kids how great space used to be.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Sounds like what happened to the Russian Venus lander:
... once the spacecraft had landed, the lens cap was thrown off ... Each spacecraft also had an experiment called the "Dynamic Penetrometer". The Penetrometer was a spring-loaded arm with a point on the end of it. The point would penetrate deep into soft ground ... but the photographs from Venera 14 show that the point of the penetrometer landed exactly on the lens cap. This is proof that Murphy's Law is a universal law.
The Soviets used the diamond as a front glass to protect the lens
when impacting at hundreds of thousands of meters per second, it would be at the bottom of a steep crater and it most probably won't work anymore...
Test your landing equipment better. Or at least once.
According to a previous /. story, the airbags were a major risk for this project.
Now scientists are claiming that this "recently discovered" crater is near the center of the landing elipse. Either someone did not do their homework or they made a BIG mistake.
Scientists also say that they have ruled out hardware problems. Does that include landing equipment? Parachute failure: Beagle2 would have been travelling to fast for the airbags to deploy in time/protect it from impact. Airbag failure: failure to deploy would leave the craft unprotected on impact; failure to detach could cripple the craft. Pathfinder had an issue where an airbag partially obstructed the deployment of the ramp for the Sojouner.
This may have been the cheapest mission of this sort, but it also may be as big a catastrophe as the Polar Lander. If we (people in general) are going to continue spending vast sums of money to send probes and rovers to the planets, comets, and far reaches of the solar system, I for one would like it if we actually got some tangible return on our investment. Galileo, and Voyager, and Pathfinder are/were examples of missions were of incredible worth. That is space exploration as it should be. Take the time. Test your systems individually and together. Ensure that all calculations are correct. Check and re-check everything. As Yoda would say "Do or do not. There is no try." So should it be with any bit of space exploration
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?
-
Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
Damn, they blew up the lander. I hope I have enough RU's to build a new one!
Well, sorry folks. I tried to work a Star Control 2 funny in here, but I'm just out of steam.
"Derp de derp."
Gee, where could we find something like that??
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Snoooopy, Snoooopy,
Why-oh-why did you roam? (come home come home)
Snoooopy, Snoooopy,
Come home, Snoopy come home. (come home come home)
Snoooopy, Snoooopy,
Where'd you run away to? (come home come home)
Snoooopy, Snoooopy,
Everything's wrong without you.
You split the scene, and nothing is right.
Good grief, why did you get so uptight?
Why did you go? We're in a fog.
Don't you know you're our favorite dog?
Snoopy come home, Snoopy come home,
Come home Snoopy, Snoopy come home, come home.
Snoooopy, Snoooopy,
Why-oh-why did you roam? (Come home come home)
Snoooopy, Snoooopy,
Come home, Snoopy come home.
---anactofgod---
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
"This would be an incredibly unlucky situation," he said.
Luck had nothing to do with it.
Ahahaha! Victory is mine!
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer:
It is highly likely that human beings as a species will outgrow the Earth's resources. At that point we can either enact draconian measures to limit reproduction, or more realistically, we can begin to reach out to other worlds. One added benefit of reaching out to other worlds is that it prevents the old "all your eggs in one basket" problem: If an asteroid takes out Earth or something, humanity gets wiped out. I'd like to keep the species going... I like humans.
With fava beans and a nice chianti.
Anyway, knowing more about the universe outside of this globe makes us better able to move beyond. For my money, the sooner, the better.
Ultimately space exploration is for the same cause as environmentalism to me: It's about our continued survival and growth as a species.
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...
On Mars, craters crashland you!
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
First Mars needs Women, Then Mars needs Guitars, NOW Mars Needs sattelites... Y'know if Mars needed enriched uranium or fast-breeder reactors we could get the marines there on the cheap-
Well with 'Beagle 2' and 'Hope/Nozumi' down, It almost puts NASA in a good light
--Shaddup and support your local PBS station Plan for it
... that the phrase blew up on landing means exactly that, on landing, not before landing. If you confuse yourself by thinking inflating instead of exploding, same result, because they were supposed to inflate before landing.
Infuriate left and right
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
Jeez, somebody loses their dog and they blame a crater on Mars.
If they knew anything about Mars, they would know that a banth got it. Bad luck, old boys.
. . . you have probes up on cinderblocks scattered across your lawn.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
If we ever colonize this planet, we will have to clean our crap up from all over the place.
VENI, VIDI, VICI, DIXI
That would have made no difference. The critical issue with atmospheric entry is WHERE in the atmosphere it enters, this was controlled very very accurately by pointing Beagle2 before it was released by Mars Express. Once thats done Bagle simply follows newtons laws to its entry point. Beagle 2 was "spun up" before it left Mars express to stabilize its attitude so it would enter the atmosphere with the correct side down but even if this failed it wouldn't really matter all that much. Attude of Beagle on initial entry dosen't matter because as soon as it starts to hit the top of the atmosphere it will right itself so the heat shield is pointed down; the same way that a pencil dropped from a tall building will always land point down.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Haha, I'm an idiot. Just goes to show that even if you RTFA, your ideas can get the best of you sometimes...
Freedom: "I won't!"
What happened was twofold.
1. Food production technology continued to improve.
2. Several billion people were never born.
And what's really happening is that we're getting better at distributing and producing food faster than we are at making babies. What's more, countries like China and India that have imposed reproduction limitations are, combined with a desire to have male children, going to see their populations plummet if the measures remain effective.
Which is why I think the more effective argument isn't the population growth as much as the "all eggs in one basket" issue. Sure, the probability of getting hit by a large enough asteroid is small, but it only takes one...
Was the crater there before the attempted landing?
Sorry, but we're talking about Mars here. We are the Aliens, the Martians are not.
If the Martians come down here chanting "Don't run, we are your friends!" and shooting everyone in sight, well, then they are the Aliens.
Don't get all xenophobic when you are the xeno.
This Like That - fun with words!
Medium Answer: Pick one or more.
A) In our interplanetary explorations, at least until the shit hits the fan, we desire to be like doctors, and First do no harm.
B) We would like to know about any Mars Bacteria and get some nice samples so we can eliminate it before the shit hits the fan and we start colonizing, because you never know what it might do to us otherwise.
C) Given the realistic timeframe for manned Mars trips, even with China-US competition, we are worried about the higher life forms that might evolve from said bacteria before we actually send anyone up. There is reason for concern.
D) Cowboy Neal on Mars.
This Like That - fun with words!
Let's get the people who build battlebots to build our next generation of rovers. Those things can take a beating and keep on ticking.
b ots3/meet_ro bot_specs.asp?id=2
Instead of Beagle 2 we'd have Diesector!
http://www.battlebots.com/meet_the_ro
Now that thing aint gonna be stifled by a crater!
Well, could Beagle2 have been fried in the same solar flare event which finally did in the Japanese probe?
Was it possible to test Beagle2 for this while it was still attached to the ESA's Mars Express?
I have not seen any remarks about this in the mainstream media.
Yes, I know everyone uses the word "forensic" to refer to all sorts of sleuthing, but it just means "law-related". Oh, please, no need to thank me.
Looking at todays Astronomy Picture of the Day Dec 30 2003 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html it seems more likely that the beagle fell into or got stuck or wedged in a crevice maybe getting caught after a bounce or two and therefore was unable to open properly
Am I just being dense?
If two-thirds of 34 missions ended in failure, wouldn't that mean there were 11 successful missions? How come Beagle 2 would only be the fourth successful one?
It must be that the first statistic is talking about all kinds of missions (including simple orbiters with no landing component) whilst the second is talking only about landers.
That being the case, only three out of the eleven successful missions included landers in the first place. I don't believe that as many as nine or ten landers have ever been sent to Mars. This suggests that the failure rate of the landers is not noticably different than the failure rate of relatively simple orbiters.
What that says to me that the problem is not so much the rigours of descent as of the difficulty of getting electronics and batteries to last throughout launch and the long trip to Mars. I'm betting that these failed landers were dead before they even hit the atmosphere.
www.sjbaker.org
China and India may have imposed reproduction limits, but that's not even necessarily required. Europeans are hardly reproducing themselves at all anymore. In Italy for example, couples have on average 1.4 children, a sure formula for population decline. Almost all of Europe's population growth is in immigration. So the real answer to overpopulation is the "good life"!
For fun, calculate how much DDT would be lethal for you!
Not a troll. Wonderful bit of self-deprecation in a Grauniad article. "If there's one thing the British know how to snatch it is defeat and, unerringly, they know where to snatch it from." Watch out for the sneaky bit of optimism that made its way in at the end though.
Just saw something metioned on the Spiegel Online web site that the mothership, Mars Express, actually has a stereo camera that should be able to pick it up as soon as it's in proper orbit.
This comment is printed on 100% recycled electrons.
the crater wasn't there before Beagle landed.
"And this is the machine that goes *PING* to let you know that your baby is still alive."
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
Of cource the Beagle 2 found life: it was eaten :-)