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News About Beagle 2
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post Mar 8 2004, 01:53 PM
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The Atmosphere at high altitude may have been to thin to slow Bealge 2 enough during the entry, article here:

"The Beagle 2 lander could have crashed into Mars because the atmosphere on the planet was less dense than expected.

UK mission scientists told a London meeting the probe may simply have been going too fast for its parachute and airbags to bring about a soft landing. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3543295.stm
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djellison
post Mar 8 2004, 03:13 PM
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This ties in with the suggestion that Beagle 2's slightly pointier heatshield ( 60 degrees instead of 70 degrees of the rovers and pathfinder ) - would cause the altitude at which the parachute would deploy to be too low.

It was scarey enough with the Rovers, deploying a mile too low ohmy.gif

They took the design for B2s heatshield from Huygens - but of course, Hugyens is enterting the MUCH thicker Titan atmosphere ( 1.5 x earth - so approx 150 times mars)

The heatshield design itself was ok -it just had to low a Cd

Suggestions of pictures of bits of lander on the ground from MOC - if they show them at the public thing tonight - I'll be posting them tomorrow biggrin.gif

Doug
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DavidVicari
post Mar 8 2004, 03:21 PM
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The meeting was also told that an unidentified object could be seen in the image taken immediately after Beagle was ejected from its mothership, Mars Express, five days prior to the landing attempt.

I'm assuming they are talking about the object just to the right of the ESA copyright in this picture.
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djellison
post Mar 8 2004, 03:25 PM
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Isnt that like, err, Mars?

There were a whole sequence of images taken with that camera - we only ever got to see the one though.

Doug
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DavidVicari
post Mar 8 2004, 03:51 PM
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When I first saw the picture, I thought it might of been mars, but no one ever said it was. When they mentioned that there was an unidentified object, I was thinking that might be it.

You are probably right, it's probably mars. Hopefully they will release the sequence of pictures.
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djellison
post Mar 8 2004, 11:33 PM
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Well - quite a good evening, not a presentation as such, just a q'n'a thing

Basically - he wants to try and do a 2007 mission for approx 100 - 150 Million Euros that will fly two new design Beagle 2's on a carrier craft that will enter mars orbit before releasing the landers and act as a relay not only after landing, but during descent as well.

Suggestion is that the unusually thin upper atmosphere would have delayed the opening of B2's parachute to a point too low to the ground - or even too late to matter (splat ohmy.gif )

Mike Malin is being amazingly cooperative with his camera on board Mars Global Surveyor and is helping hunt for any evidence of Beagle 2 on the ground.

Someone asked the question I was going to - about there being some sort of public funding on a subscription type basis, (my idea is a supporter club in the mould of the Mach One club for Thrust SSC - which ended up being the single biggest financial contributor to the entire project)) - but Pillinger said it wouldnt really work without numbers in the hundreds of thousands. I dissagree and I'm going to propose some sort of supporters club idea to him via email, citing the Mach One club as a way of it generating hundreds of thousands of pounds in very short order.

There will be an on demand video of it at the Royal Socitey website soon ( http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/ )

I'm the one toward the fromt left with the mad black hair, and a greyey blueish long sleeve shirt

Doug
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MizarKey
post Mar 10 2004, 10:56 PM
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Doug, thanks for posting the link to the video of the Royal Society
press conference. I throughly enjoyed watching it. That moderator
was very beautiful probably moreso in person) and intelligent.

Eric P / MizarKey


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Eric P / MizarKey
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