Beagle 2 Probe Spotted on Mars

evilduckie writes "According to this BBC article photos taken by the Mars Global Surveyor show the European Beagle 2 probe which was lost after it apparently crash-landed on Mars."

Comments

Holy crap

[Viper Daimao]

I've seen less pixelated images of tits on network tv.

Re:Uhhh

[NeoThermic]

The quote there is a bit short on words.

Basically the probe was designed to impact on the surface, after being slowed by the parachutes. The underside of the probe was capable and designed to impact hard. However, what appears to have happend is that the impact was side on, hitting where the probe wasn't designed to be hit, and doing fatial damage.

NeoThermic

Incredible

[PeteQC]

Wow, we can't find Bin Laden on Earth, but we can find Beagle 2 on Mars.

This is a funny world we live in...

Re:Incredible

[BushCheney08]

The solution is obvious. We need to start looking for Bin Laden on Mars!

Beagle 2 was part of the Mars Express mission

[YA_Python_dev]

The Beagle 2 lander was part of the very successful European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express mission.

Mars Express contains 7 different scientific instruments and, amongs other things, it has already:

• discovered aurorae on Mars;

• transmitted back gigabytes of beautiful images with a resolution of up to 2 meters/pixel;

• discovered a huge subsurface water ice lake, with a thickness of 1.8 km and an extension of hundreds of kms;

• collaborated with NASA, receiving data from the Mars rovers and transmitting it back to Earth (yes: they use the same communication protocol!).

If it's like other beagles I've known...

[mark0]

... it has probably been busy humping some poor martian's leg all this time.

In Memoriam Charles M. Schultz

[alephnull42]

Allow me be the first to say:

            "Curse you, Red Baron!"

Re:Why??

[david.given]

All an image -- however high the resolution -- is going to do is confirm that yes, it did crash or yes, it landed properly but failed to communicate.

That's actually a surprisingly large amount of information. Assuming this image is actually the probe, it allows us to rule out all the various catastrophic failure modes, which in turn tells us that the landing system actually worked. Had the probe failed to make it through reentry, or had the parachute or airbags not deployed, then we wouldn't be seeing this --- the probe would be scattered in lots of little pieces across the Martian surface.

In turn this allows us to validate this entire means of landing. Actually reaching the ground in one piece is possibly the hardest aspect of any extraterrestrial robotic mission, and if a low-budget approach like Beagle's actually works, then that's great news. In this case, we can tell that even though a few things went wrong and we lost the vehicle, this entire approach to getting down does, basically, work.

Re:Why??

[fremsley471]

The lander's weakest point was the descent system. 3 months before the delivery date they discovered that the parachutes were too small and had to chop more vital kilos off the science mission. They were already aiming for one of the lowest parts of Mars, i.e. longest path and highest atmospheric density. Before Beagle landed, a colleague reported that in a lecture the previous summer, Prof. Pillinger said that the parachute's size wasn't critical as it 'collects air' which helps slow the lander down...

Prof. Pillinger is, understandably, clutching at straws. The science (and academic PR) aspects of Beagle were first class. The engineering (i.e. the expensive bit), was totally underfunded and was eventually overwhelmed. If he can prove that the concept was fine and dandy, but something small went wrong, then he can (with much greater authority) go and ask for money for a new one. However, it's unlikely after ESA's board of inquiry, that Prof. Pillinger will ever be involved at such a senior level again. http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMLKAHHZTD_index_0.html