Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Sunspot Mar 8 2004, 01:53 PM

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

Posted by: djellison Mar 8 2004, 03:13 PM

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

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

Doug

Posted by: DavidVicari Mar 8 2004, 03:21 PM

Posted by: djellison Mar 8 2004, 03:25 PM

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

Posted by: DavidVicari Mar 8 2004, 03:51 PM

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.

Posted by: djellison Mar 8 2004, 11:33 PM

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 )

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

Posted by: MizarKey Mar 10 2004, 10:56 PM

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