Wreckage Of Beagle 2 Found? Options

[Decepticon]

I bet it landed OK but did not function due to technical difficulties.

You heard it here first People!


** Ducks at tomatoes!**

[Phil Stooke]

Nice image processing, Doug - or 'the other Phil' as I think you should now be called.

I have no confidence in this finding, alas. In particular, as Doug's enlarged image of the crater shows, the three-dot pattern suggested to be the airbags could be matched to a thousand locations in that MOC image alone. I thought the MPL location was much more solid, and that turned out to be a mistake.

Phil

[Bjorn Jonsson]

I went and found the orig MSSS image, got the IMG, NASA-Viewed it, did a trick a read that Phil uses by essentially subtracting from the whole image a vertical average of every column of pixels ( to subtract some of the streaking - I duplicated the image, resized to one pixel high, resized to the full size, inverted and put at 50%...ish)  - then enlarged by 50% with simply nearest neighbour interpolation to not infer anything that isnt there, and then did the same trick of Phil's again to get rid of a little more noise, and came up with this.

Doug

This looks like a regular crater to me with no 'artifacts' at all. The image at the BBC website looked a little more convincing - until I saw the annotated version ;-). I doubt even MRO is going to determine exactly where Beagle landed, assuming it did land in roughly one piece.

[RNeuhaus]

Hmmmm...

So there was no error or malfunction of the lander.

But it seems that landing into hollowed places is not uncommon. Imagine it had landed a bit more to the right, in the larger crater... rolling all along the slope, to end up bogged into a dune in the bottom.
This is, I think, a lesson to retain: we cannot design landers able to land only into ideal flat places. The landers must be able to land into harsh places, including craters and slopes.

I agree it. The landing guessing cost is rather too high so it is rather convenient to invest more the intelligent landing technology in order to minimize the misfortune. Consequently the overall will lead a lower mission cost.

Long time ago, in the Skycrane topic I have discussed about the importance to incorporate a sophisticated software to analyze the landing image and mark a CROSS or zone for the best landing place.

That is a new and the next technology evolution. The aim for all next spacecraft landing in any solar system must have incorporated the landing software. Up to now, all spacecraft has landed by the luck. None of them have analyzed the surface and select the place before landing. Some probe very lucky (Huygens) and some very bad luck (Beagle2).

Rodolfo

[JRehling]

I have no confidence in this finding, alas.  In particular, as Doug's enlarged image of the crater shows, the three-dot pattern suggested to be the airbags could be matched to a thousand locations in that MOC image alone.  I thought the MPL location was much more solid, and that turned out to be a mistake.

Phil

I mightily agree. I would bet "the field" against this site being the actual site. MRO can show us the closeup when it arrives.

The story of the ongoing rhetorical huffing and puffing is rather sad. Before the arrival, it was confidence bordering on arrogance, which wouldn't have been a problem if it had been Pillinger vs. Mars instead of Pillinger vs. NASA Yanks. Now it's all too predictable that he would grasp at an unlikely detection and argue that it was the right design but just bad luck. I think the "hole in one" idea is a subliminal transfer from Opportunity. My bet is that MRO will show Beagle 2 sitting crashed on open ground, and then Pillinger won't have anything but the unexpectedly thin atmosphere to scapegoat and avoid concluding that his design was wrong.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

I agree it. The landing guessing cost is rather too high so it is rather convenient to invest more the intelligent landing technology in order to minimize the misfortune. Consequently the overall will lead a lower mission cost.

Long time ago, in the Skycrane topic I have discussed about the importance to incorporate a sophisticated software to analyze the landing image and mark a CROSS or zone for the best landing place. 

That is a new and the next technology evolution. The aim for all next spacecraft landing in any solar system must have incorporated the landing software. Up to now, all spacecraft has landed by the luck.  None of them have analyzed the surface and select the place before landing.  Some probe very lucky (Huygens) and some very bad luck (Beagle2).

Rodolfo

Newest image analysis could allow today for real-time 3D analysis of the terrain, provided there is a camera aboard (two wiews of the same spot make a stereo view, as a probe seldom lands vertically). This is done for most modern homing missiles which go much faster than a probe...

[tedstryk]

I am not buying it, although I will suspend judgment until I have seen high resolution images of the rest of the crater. It is hard to believe that there are no marks in the crater (At least the part seen, and yet it bounced around in there hard enough to destroy it and then propel it out of the crater, after which, rather than bouncing, the little Beagle made this 20-30 meter splat mark. I buy that this could be the Beagle, but I would content, unless more coverage of that crater proves otherwise, that if it is the Beagle, it came hurtling out of the sky and splattered there, fortunately being near a crater, providing a great excuse. MRO's resolution and multispectral capabilities can resolve both ends of this, scouring for other marks and seeing if there are color variations that indicate that this is anything but a small, young, natural crater.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

I dont think you've read the news report correctly... he's not suggesting Beagle 2 created the crater when hitting the surface....... but landed in it.

http://www.beagle2.com/index.htm The Beagle website has a VERY thorough explanation of the news as well as a few bits of information not in the news reports.

[volcanopele]

I didn't see one on the page linked by imram but the BBC has a picture.

I hope they have a 'before' shot, else I'm going to be more than a little skeptical.

James

I'm with you. Without a before picture, all I see are a few dark and bright spots in a small crater, on the slope of a much larger crater. If there was a before picture that didn't show those, I would be much more convinced. That is one of the beauties of the MOC images of the MER landing sites. Before and after photos make it clear where the rovers landed, where they are, and where they have been (from the tracks which change from image to image).

[djellison]

I agree - it's not much and certainly far from conclusive..

But, given fairly comprehensive MOC coverage of the landing ellipse, it's basically all there is. It's not much, I know, but it's arguably the only target worthy of HIRISE's attention.

Doug

[RNeuhaus]

I was not aware of Beagle 2 mission. After reading Beagle 2's pages and I realized that its landing design was not redundant. It only used the aerobaking during the initial landing, used one kind of parachute and then...air bags.

It is too dangerous since after the parachute, there is no means to break if the probe landing speed is too fast. By incorporating the rockets propulsion as the last resource since it can adjust the landing speed before the probe touch down on the land.

By that time, no one knows by sure about the atmosphere density and others ephemeral Martian parameters and the Beagle 2 landed with a static landing system by aerobraking, parachute and air bags. I seems that it is one of the greatest errors.

I concur Volcanopele about the importance to have good detail pictures of landing place before any planned landing. This will help to find fast the landing site by just comparing among the images by the computer.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

This was always regarded by engineers before the landing as one of the most dangerous aspects of the Beagle design. The assumption (or hope) was that, being so much lighter than Pathfinder, a parachute and airbags alone without a last-second solid retromotor would be adequate -- but this is one of the most likely possible causes of the failure, given the fact that they had some problems with the airbags even during ground testing and had to fall back on JPL for emergency assistance in retesting them.

[AstronomíaOnline...]

The Search For Beagle 2

http://www.beagle2.com

Technical Contributors: Stuart Hurst, Colin Pillinger, Jim Clemmet, Lutz Richter, Dave Northey, Lester Waugh.
Image Analysis by Guy Rennie.
Mars Images Courtesy Mike Malin.

[tedstryk]

I dont think you've read the news report correctly... he's not suggesting Beagle 2 created the crater when hitting the surface.......  but landed in it.

http://www.beagle2.com/index.htm  The Beagle website has a VERY thorough explanation of the news as well as a few bits of information not in the news reports.

I am not saying it made the big crater in the frame. But I am pointing out the size of what is supposedly the beagle...That had to splatter hard, which meant it had to be going really, really fast.

[ljk4-1]

I am not saying it made the big crater in the frame.  But I am pointing out the size of what is supposedly the beagle...That had to splatter hard, which meant it had to be going really, really fast.

Most ironic, if Beagle 2 landed in a small crater just as Opportunity did.