Still No Contact from Beagle 2

Many of you have submitted this, so this will be a condensing of the relevant information. WebfishUK writes: "The BBC has just released this story which announces the failure of the latest and possibly best chance to contact the British built Mars probe, Beagle 2. Given that Mars Express was designed to communicate with Beagle (unlike the earlier attempts with NASA's Mars Odyssey), this may indicate that something catastrophic has happened to Beagle 2." From Bromrrrrr: "[The] ESA is reporting that the Mars Express, which everybody was hoping would be able to get through to the poor lost puppy, has failed its first attempt. 'We have not lost hope yet to contact Beagle 2, but we also know that it has landed on an unforgiving planet,' said David Southwood, ESA's Director of Science." and I-R-Baboon adds: "The Mars Express mothership from the EU passed 350 km over the intended landing site of the Beagle 2 hearing only silence. Although nothing was heard, hope has not been given up yet, as scientists will keep trying until February, with more passovers of the Beagle 2's landing site on January 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, and 14th." Additional updates can be obtained from the Beagle 2 homepage as well as from the ESA's homepage for the Mars Express. Here's hoping that the lander is only down, and not out.

Comments

next time

[WormholeFiend]

why dont they include some sort of near-indestructible beacon that will send a signal in case of crash, so that orbiting probes can locate and photograph the crash site??

I'm European

[jawtheshark]

...and I'm sad it is down...

But it's down... and won't get up again. Let's just rejoice over the spirit pictures.... It is something, even if it wans't funded by our tax euros.

Re:Let me condense the relevant info further

[Doomrat]

The US succeeded where the EU did not

Yeah. Of course, it's totally unheard for an American space project to blow up, or fail completely because the scientists couldn't even manage to seperate metric measurements from imperial. Let's face it, the Beagle landed in a crater. Tragic, but it's not incompetence.

Feeling the need to declare your nation's superiority on Slashdot is quite the sign of insecurity.

How can this be "interesting" ?

[Space cowboy]

I mean, do you think they intentionally build the signalling system to self-destruct on a crash landing, or what ?

There's a 73 Kg limit (including all the airbags, entry heat-shield, and the actual payload) for the entire mission, and you want to put in armoured (read: heavy) modules for when it all goes wrong ?

What purpose would this serve ? So we can now get a photo where the 6 white pixels (and I'm being *very* generous with the resolving power of the orbital cameras) are the lander. Whoosh. What now ? And to do that, we leave out the gas spectrometer, perhaps ?

I'm sure you're a clever individual, but there are also very clever people at mission control. They will have forgotten more about sending probes on a journey through the Solar System than you or I will ever know, and I really was a rocket scientist, albeit only for a few years (it doesn't pay well...) Engage brain before fingers...

Simon.