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Beagle 3 Plans Revealed

Posted by timothy on from the this-time-it-must-bark dept.

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."

8 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Design flaws waiting to happen.... by Jtheletter · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From the article:
    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. --
    1. Re:Design flaws waiting to happen.... by Fweeky · · Score: 2, Insightful
      "So now there is a 50% greater chance of catastrophic energy collection failure. Check."

      Maybe, how do you know? Maybe the new panels have a higher MTBF; maybe Beagle 2 really needed all 4 panels, but Beagle III could run off a single new one; maybe with fewer parts the MTBF of the entire system's actually higher even if it can't survive a single failure. Of course, as a random SlashDot poster, I'm sure you're more aware of the issues surrounding it than experienced engineers.
      "So now when the "fanfold mechanism" for that panel fails we lose communications along with half the power. Check."

      You're probably boned if you lose either; so what? Are you somehow under the impression that having *more* parts you're dependent on makes for a more reliable system? Do you RAID-0 your HD's by any chance?
  2. Stick with seafaring tradition by Camel+Pilot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You never name a ship after a spectacular failure

    Would you sail on the Titanic II

    1. Re:Stick with seafaring tradition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Apollo 11 was no less famous or successful because Apollo 1 burned on the launching pad with the loss of all three astronauts.

  3. Re:Beagle 3...why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Maybe because the rovers were only designed to do one thing really well, and the Beagle probe was designed to do some other thing really well?

  4. Re:Beagle 3...why? by Ga_101 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The two NASA rovers are robotic Geologists'.

    The Beagles' are robotic Chemists.

    While the NASA robots have done a good job in the "Hummm thats interesting" way of Geology, if Beagle 2 had landed, we would know if life had existed in that area of Mars. Indeed, the head of the Beagle project has critised the two NASA rovers for lacking anything to conduct any real science.

    It is reasons like this that we need to send more robots. Beagle 2 cost a mere fraction of either of the two NASA rovers and they in turn cost a hell of a lot less than a manned mission.

    Until money is not an object (ie like in the original space race, aka "beat the commies/capitalist pig dogs"), a manned mission won't happen. This is the next best thing.

  5. Fantastic news! by ScottMaxwell · · Score: 4, Insightful
    My only comment on Beagle 2 when the press asked me about it (as a member of the MER mission, we got that question a lot) was that I was sorry it hadn't worked out, but that the only real failure would be if the Beagle 2 team, and the British people generally, gave up and didn't do a Beagle 3. It was an inventive spacecraft design with an exciting mission, and the team behind it clearly was capable of great things.

    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
  6. Re:Huh?? by M1FCJ · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It is more like not enough money (to test and develop) and not enough time (to finish testing and development). Pillinger made it possible with a token amount of money, less than one tenth of the cost of a single American Rover's cost. He at least managed to get the probe all the way to Mars successfully. Many American and especially Russian probes even failed to do that. IMHO, when you look at the project as a total, it was pretty successful but not a complete one. Failure to land is not the end of the things. There is a team who is willing to work on the next one and finding people and money is the hardest thing.