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Beagle 2 Failure Analyzed
InsomniaCity writes "An inquiry into the loss of the Beagle 2 Mars probe in December will criticize the management of the project and the testing of the lander, says the BBC. Following the loss, the European Space Agency (Esa) and the British National Space Centre established a Commission of Inquiry, that are now recommending 19 things we need to remember for the future, from project management and fund raising, to high altitude testing of the parachute system. The commission, however, did not pinpoint any particular technical failure."
Am I the only one who can't believe they didn't think of this before?
And you would be right to not believe that they did not think of it. They did. They took it out to some desert and did a test drop. It failed. They damaged the parachute. Time constraints meant that they just had to use the untested spare parachute. This was all on a BBC documentary about the project.
Entirely fair comment (I work in the "industry" concerned). One thing to remember with Beagle/Mars Express and many other interplanetaries is the Launch date is FIXED by orbital motions and that puts some pressure on development and testing.
I think some increased quality control would be quite usefull.
And I'm sure the engineers who designed it would agree with you 100%. The root problem as another poster pointed out was there wasn't enough money to do that. The budget was shoestring $50 million. You can't go to mars for less than it costs to make a movie about going to mars.
AccountKiller
The problems decribed here are endemic to the way what little money is available for British scientific research is distributed.
I work for the Earth Sciences department at Oxford University, one of the very best funded Universities in the UK, yet much of the time which should be spent on research by lecturers and postdoctural research staff is tied up with the beaurocracy of funding. Not only this but the funds available to keep the departments running, ie. the infrastructural costs, are going down year on year.
I feel for Professor Pillinger. He did the best job of getting funding he could. It's highly unlikely that he would have be able to get more managerial help from anyone in the current circumstances and the only person who could have publicised the whole thing was himself.
If the research council and funding bodies are anything like NERC, they only want research which already knows the results (ie. pointless) and is preferably one of the fashionable subjects (currently climate change and the environment).
Please note that I am speaking on behalf of myself and not in any way on behalf of the University of Oxford or the Department of Earth Sciences. All of the opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any group within the University of any policy thereof.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
Stretching the timescale was simply not an option. It was a passenger on Mars Ezpress, which was going to launch in a particular narrow window because of the relative positions of Mars and Earth. The options were 1: fit it into the time available, 2: cancel.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
The Beagle II piggybacked on the Mars Express spacecraft. It could have been a rock and would have gotten to mars. That in itself is just not an accomplishment.
If it actually would have worked, sure that would have been a great accomplishment. I don't know about being doomed to failure, but given the money and limited testing it should be fairly obvious that it's not highly likely it'll succeed. That's fine, not everything has to suceed. For only 50 million, you try again later from what you've learned.
AccountKiller