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Simulations May Explain Loss of Beagle 2 Mars Probe
chrb writes "Researchers at Queensland University have used computer simulations to calculate that the loss of the US$80 million British Beagle 2 Mars probe was due to a bad choice of spin rate during atmospheric entry, resulting in the craft burning up within seconds. The chosen spin rate was calculated by using a bridging function to estimate the transitional forces between the upper and lower atmosphere, while the new research relies on simulation models. Beagle 2 team leader Professor Colin Pillinger has responded saying that the figures are far from conclusive, while another chief Beagle engineer has said 'We still think we got it right.'"
another chief Beagle engineer has said 'We still think we got it right.'
They got it right, yet the mission failed. What sort of weird mental block do these people have?
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this could have been cool to watch. poof, nothing.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
-watches 80 million burn up- If this is what happens when our smart people get that much money, does this massive bailout plan really stand a chance?
Everyone always blames the bridging function...
.... that The Transformers got it.
In fact, it broadcast 13 seconds of footage. It can be viewed here. http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=wFvUdt9BQhU
This space for rent
Name a one thing british ever made right.
Now, this may be crazy talk, but shouldn't you do the computer simulations BEFORE sending the $80m craft on it's way?
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
"Beagle 2 team leader Professor Colin Pillinger has responded saying that the figures are far from conclusive, while another chief Beagle engineer has said 'We still think we got it right.'"
-So they really *did* intend to burn the craft up on re-entry? If they did, what's all the hubbub about?
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Why does nobody think about the aliens?!
It was them i tells ye.
Those aliens wanted to keep the secret between them and NASA only, so they blew that thing outta the skies.
The human race isn't ready yet.
This has to be the coolest name for a scientist I have ever encountered!:
Dr. Madhat Abdel-Jawad...Madhat FTW!!!
Or, maybe I have watched too many 1950's-1960's grade B (or some/most less than 'B') 'mad scientist' movies for my own good.
It could also be Lewis Carroll's fault for "Alice in Wonderland" having the 'MadHatter'....I just don't know anymore...
Oh yeah, have pink flamingo, will travel...BTW, WHO are you, again?. (Don Ameche's character as the senile father)
Worth watching, a very funny but family safe movie- I give it a 'two thumbs up' rating.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
There is something wrong but interesting about the idea that a computer simulation can explain what happened in a real-life incident. In the normal usage of "explain", only causally-related events can explain other events.
There is undoubtedly something to the contention that a computer simulation does some explanatory work, but it must be in a roundabout way. Maybe this: the computer simulation provides evidence to the effect that some prior event was able to cause the known outcome; but then it is the prior event (the bad choice of spin rate in this case) that explains the loss of the Beagle 2, not the computer simulation.
Come on, Cider is french :-D
Herve S.
So what is a "bridging function"? Definitely not something about Ethernet bridging... but what is it?
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
There has been a very detailed assessment of this failure by the European Space Agency at the time, and the guys were quite competent being the ones that built the (successful) Huygens probe to Titan embarked on Cassini.
:(
ESA found many issues, mostly due to way too severe cost constraints (a "british-only" program...).
Among them IIRC, the main parachute that was changed in extremis (when the unpaid earlier maker announced they wouldn't go up to offer the flight model too) resulted in a drag coefficient that was smaller than the drag of the front shield, this big "bottom" device that you drop immediately after the peak entry aerothermal flux. Having such a drag ratio means the front shield could perfectly have slammed back onto the descent module upon release, or just inside the parachute itself with the consequence you can imagine (all of this happens at around Mach 1).
And that one was just an issue among others...
I'm searching for that ESA document but I just can't track it back right now
I thought it was because they used MS Excel 2007 to work out the spin rate!
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/330/1
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/347/1
As for Colin Pillinger, note that the (initially secret) ESA report on the Beagle failure put much of the blame on project management failings and he's not been put in charge of any large project since.
How many different independent forces could have influenced Beagle? Represent each with a variable. Calculate how many emergent properties could have influenced the craft (those arising from interactions between main variables). Assign these a variable. Estimate the range of values for each variable. Calculate the dynamics of each variable (ie. linear, logarithmic, hyperbolic, etc., including estimation of those whose behavior does not fit a simple function, instead requiring complex functions). For each variable, estimate a reasonable granularity (they may be analog, but the resulting computation would include infinities, so digitizing is necessary). Calculate the matrix necessary to represent all the possible results. Determine whether the calculations could be completed in polynomial time. Almost certainly not, so estimate how many variables (and their dynamics) must be retained and drop the rest. Calculate the solutions matrix for this reduced set. Check for polynomial time solution. If no, reduce yet again. With each reduction estimate the error range introduced, and whether any of them are unacceptable and the prior value retained.
Estimate the amount of computational power/time necessary to complete the solutions matrix, including the cost of buying/building/renting/etc. and your available resources. Calculate how many orders of magnitude there are between what's necessary to solve the problem and what you have to work with. From that estimate how much you have to reduce the solutions matrix in order to be able to arrive at some solutions, as well as how inaccurate any results will be.
Once you have the calculation of the solution set down to polynomial time and within your budget, look at how inaccurate your results will be. If the accuracy is found to be acceptable, and the calculation therefore worth doing, chances are you've made a mistake in your estimations. Almost certainly the inaccuracy will become too great before your reductions result in a solvable problem. Also note that the minimal matrix dimension will probably not be an integer. Choosing the best number of variables would be trivial, as you simply choose the next highest integer. However just because the solution here is between N and N+1 does not mean that there is only one variable with a fractional influence; estimate how many and which variables are best characterized as non-integers and select the best set of variables to use in the model. Calculate how far back into non-polynomial time your solution estimate has drifted, or at best how far over your resource budget the calculations will require.
Take a dose of analgesic of your choice sufficient to eliminate your headache. Begin building a model using the minimum number of (integer) variables necessary to arrive at a variable/value set that produces a result matching the behavior of the phenomenon you wish to model. Ignore the probability calculations that would indicate how likely it is you're wrong, and how many such wrong solutions you'll arrive at before you happen on a possibly right solution. Instead of using probability estimates to calculate statistical significance of any calculated solution, use the fact that a solution can be found that results in the same behavior as the one to be modeled, and wrongly call that accidental similarity 'practical significance'. Publish a factually unsupportable assertion that your model describes what happened based only on the fact that your model achieves the same result and count on the fact that nobody else on your research team, or anyone for that matter, is capable of accomplishing the necessary calculations described here to conclusively state you're wrong, or at best that you can't say you're right.
Estimate the positive influence the number of publications, regardless of validity, has on the probability of receiving future funding and amount thereof. Conclude that minimal-guess "modeling" provides you with the ability to say something that sounds reasonable whereas attempting to achieve real validity would take too
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
At least I thought the Sycorax destroyed it..
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...that the spin rate screwup is the official story, but what really happened is that a laser from NASA's Mars Odyessy probe took it out before the European probe took pictures of faces and canals and crystal cities that would have been outside the control of the Majestic 12 group.
but that's not how it works in grown-up land.
...slashdot's not grown-up land.
This is clearly a matter of an unfortunate choice of names. Naming it "beagle" was clearly asking it to wander off and get lost. Any beagle owner will be able to attest to this.
British you see, useless. If I had a Luger, eh? Think of it, scientists properly equipped. The answer's with you, the voters.
How much did it really cost ? how much money did these engineers kept for other projects or for themselves ?
I thought it was swallowed up by the Sycorax on Christmas two years ago.
(Yes, I know that The Christmas Invasion aired three years ago, but there was that one year time loss early in the first season of Doctor Who, between Rose and Aliens of London that hasn't really been accounted for since. Should actually put Torchwood ahead a year, too.)
#include <signature.h>
It just hasn't finished indexing the contents of Mars yet.
It's only a flesh wound!
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.