Slashdot Mirror
Beagle 3 Plans Revealed
Richard W.M. Jones writes "While the UK's
Beagle 2
may have been a well-publicised failure,
the same team claims to have learned lessons
and are now developing
plans for
Beagle 3.
The new probe might be attached to
a European mission due to launch in
2009 as part of Europe's Aurora project."
beagle 1, here's your answer.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
Will be a gun with a flashlight!
And in related news today, Symantec Corporation announced that it has developed innoculation files for the W32.Beagle.3@mm virus. Symantec officials commented that there is no apparent link between Beagle.2 and the crash of the Beagle lander, but it is not taking any chances.
Lets hope this project doesn't look like a giant comfy chair and extracts memories.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
the same team claims to have learned lessons
Translation: They're going to paint it flourescent green so they can tell where it crashed.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Mars's composition is mainly... Beagle material.
Step 2: Double check that antenna is attached really firmly.
Step 3: Make sure antenna is hooked to transmitter.
Step 4: Be sure you didn't disconnect the antenna when checking the transmitter.
John
I thought one of the reasons cited for the failure of Beagle 2 was the very fact that it was piggybacked on a separate agency's orbiter. Now they're contradicting themselves, and saying they'll try it again?
Advances in solar cell technology mean the craft will be able to cope with half the number of solar panels its predecessor carried: it will open up to reveal two panels rather than previous four.
So now there is a 50% greater chance of catastrophic energy collection failure. Check.
The craft's UHF antenna (identical to that on Beagle 2) is positioned on the top panel, so the motorised fanfold mechanism ensures it always points upwards for communication.
So now when the "fanfold mechanism" for that panel fails we lose communications along with half the power. Check.
Engineers stressed, however, that this was a preliminary proposal and the design would continue to "evolve".
Let's hope so.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
It's almost as if they don't speak english.
See what I've been reading.
I mean, aren't the rovers on mars still roaming around doing a perfectly fine job? Seems to me maybe the next logical step would be for manned exploration. Robot vehicles can only do so much, and frankly sending another probe to Mars just seems pointless.
I don't know if we're ready for a manned mission to Mars yet, but it seems like the next logical step. The rovers have had a lot of success, but how much more can we learn without taking the next step? I think it is time for an international manned exploration of Mars...that's likely the only way to get funding these days.
You never name a ship after a spectacular failure
Would you sail on the Titanic II
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
Let's hope they do a better job than JPL...
How do you convert slugs to metric anyway?
Should you avoid putting salt on its tail?
Points to mars
Fetch Beagle2 boy, good boy Beagle3, fetch.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
You'll notice that the Beagle 3 does NOT have the auto-triggered cloaking device equipped on the last version of the rover.
This is estimated to save billions of dollars of lost operations budget and tylenol.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
huh... and for a minute I thought this post was about the 'bagle' virus... no wonder the post didnt make sense.
?SYNTAX ERROR IN LINE 42
...sending a lander to intercept one of the mars rovers, breaking off the NASA antennas, installing a proper British antenna, and placing a Beagle 3 plaque on it.
Mars Expensive Hardware Lob - The Mars Scorecard - 20:17 with Earth losing
c or ecard.html
http://www.bio.aps.anl.gov/~dgore/fun/PSL/marss
Don't hit the ground so hard.
Thats quite funny.
Reality check:
Real ale is typically served at celar temperature, (below room tempererature), so it's refreshing. It is typically served a few degrees warmer than a block of ice because there's no need to numb your taste buds unlike certain "beers" which
if you could taste you wouldn't drink.
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
"would have a mass at entry into the Martian atmosphere of about 131kg"
BAD science reporter! BAD! no treat for you.
...I got nothing.
Then I'm all for it!
MPs blame lack of cash for failure of Beagle 2
The most recent report on the failure of Beagle II, done by the House of Commons Science and Technology select committee sighted many "amateurish" funding woes and a lack of cooperation between the USA and the UK government as the underlying cause of failure. Pillenger responded by saying that they couldn't get guarantees of funding mostly because those groups didn't have the money to give. But what does that say about the success of the next project if the funding for Beagle II was dependant on groups that couldn't afford to guarantee funding but said they'd try to find the money anyway...and then failed to do so, unless they go at the next mission with a different attitude?
NASA has backed off of its Faster-Better-Cheaper which left faster and cheaper intact, while somewhat disregarding better, in favor of Faster-Better-Fund_Projects_Appropriatly...which seems certainly to have done the trick for such projects as the Mars Exploration Rovers, which (I would agrue appropriatly) cost hundreds of millions of dollars to properly build and test for the challenges they were being asked to face.
This is the real Beagle the Brits should have used to get the job done right the first time!
Somebody badly needs an update. Lucas has not existed for years. It was taken over by Varity about ten years ago (well they called it a merger but Varity managers ended up in charge); then it disappeared into TRW (makers of long-distance space probes), then most of that disappeared into Northrop-Grummond (if I spelled that correctly). So if you have had problems with a Lucas part in the last ten years, just remember it's American.
Doh, sorry, clicked on the story above the one I was resonding to!
Beagle2 was essentially a deadweight package dropped from an insanely high altitude. It really seems to me that the two biggest mistakes they made were A) not keeping in contact with it during descent, and B) not providing facilities on it to do minor course corrections if it turned out to be wanting to hit the atmosphere at so shallow an angle that it simply skips off the atmosphere to get lost in space.
Now I realize that Beagle didn't have such communication or navigation facilities on board so that it could accomodate the weight restrictions placed on it, but really, I'd be willing to bet that these two modifications alone would have made all the difference in the world.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So I'm as happy as anyone (except maybe Dr. Pillinger :-) to see that they're going for it. From a JPL-based Martian to my friends on the Beagle 3 team (and at ESA), best of luck with Beagle 3!
``Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators.'' -- Richard Dawkins
On the other hand, Britain was really "Great" at that time. It's time for a renaming job. "Little" suits it better. :-)
Real ales are making somewhat of a comeback. Even chain pubs in Britain offer a 'guest ale' or two, and some such as Wetherspoons make a big thing of having four or five to try. Not only are they often very drinkable, but they're often significantly cheaper than Bud and other branded fizzy alcohols.
Just don't let anybody called Colin anywhere near this one....
(I blame the bumbling bloke with his oldly-worldy looks and, more importantly, methods for screwing up the last one. Building a space probe with many things done by "Gentleman's agreement" and no comprehensive written records... He must be balmy.)
-1,000 experience points for you. :-)
Exactly! Quality versus quantity.
Taste versus big bucks advertising.
Discerning drinkers versus "me-too" brand exploitees.
"Twas ever thus" - Bugs Bunny
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.