Wreckage Of Beagle 2 Found? Options

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Given how close MER-A (I refuse to use that cornball name "Spirit") came to disaster because of the unexpectedly low density of Mars' upper atmosphere -- even after its hasty last-minute reprogramming to open its parachute earlier, it came within 3 seconds of opening the chute too late to avoid a crash -- I think this has an excellent chance of being the fatal flaw in Beagle: it just came down too damned fast due to the lower than predicted Martian air density, and kaplooey. We'll never know whether some additional flaw also existed that would have done it in anyway, given the flaws that the failure board found to be riddling its design -- but the air density problem by itself would have been enough, and is very likely to have happened.

I am only now coming to realize how hard it actually is to land on Mars because of its peculiar halfway nature. As Ed Strick (and Rob Manning) say, it's very hard to utilize either purely aerodynamic braking or purely rocket braking to land on it, and Mars' thin air density has a height profile such that it's difficult even to combine the two effectively enough to get the braking job done in time. We may actually have been very lucky up to now to pull off as many successful Mars landings as we have -- most of the previous failures (Mars 2, 3 and 7; Polar Lander) were due to unconnected technical problems, but Mars' atmosphere alone may seriously endanger landers, and may conceivably have done in both Mars 6 and Beagle as well as almost killing MER-A. And the bigger the lander, the more serious the problem rapidly becomes.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

If i'm remembering this correctly, and it was a long time ago at the first post landing press briefing, didnt one of the landing team say that the parachute deployed about 1 mile below the predicted altitude?

[djellison]

Unfortunately, only the data sets for EDL are out, and not the derrived onces such as altitude, speed, temp, pressure etc etc. Once they are, I'll put some graphs together for all three ( MPF, MERA, MERB ) - and see what story they tell. Infact, I dont know if they actually will be out - I'd have thought if they were going to be, they would have been by now.

Doug

[Nix]

Is it me or is there a radial pattern of dark streaks around the dark 'impact' spot? I see about 5 streaks -maybe indicative of debris or dust-removal by the impact?
They don't seem to be related to the little crater itself.

Nico

[Nix]

Also, every similar crater in the area doesn't show a spot that dark with such clear contours, within the shadow area. Could be dust buildup..maybe...but I think they're right on this.

[mcaplinger]

I am only now coming to realize how hard it actually is to land on Mars because of its peculiar halfway nature... We may actually have been very lucky up to now to pull off as many successful Mars landings as we have...

I believe that Viking had pretty good margins against density variations. The best way to get margin is to have more propellant available. Much of the "difficulty" of landing on Mars comes from using a landing system like MPF/MER, which has very, very thin margins because the RAD firings happen so late in the descent and don't provide all that much delta-v. To a certain extent, the MPL/PHX system is tight because of propellant mass constraints, but I don't think those margins are nearly as tight as MER's.

Is there some publically-accessible writeup about the "near-disaster" on MER? I've only heard these rumors.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Is it me or is there a radial pattern of dark streaks around the dark 'impact' spot? I see about 5 streaks -maybe indicative of debris or dust-removal by the impact?
They don't seem to be related to the little crater itself.

Nico

Thats a feature the Beagle team have noted too..... see the Beagle website www.beagle2.com In the closeup image (slide 7) you can see a few "fingers" of darker material protruding from the top of the crater - which has been interpreted as possible ejecta caused by Beagle 2 hiting the crater.

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[Nix]

Thanks Sunspot.

Nico

[ugordan]

If this crater indeed turns out to be Beagle's resting place, it would really be a mindblowing case of bad luck... Just seeing how sparse the crater density is in the area and it managed to drop right into one.

Opportunity was said to have struck a whole in one, but this is beyond words.

At least Mr. Pillinger will be able to take some comfort in the fact Beagle 2 succeeded in reaching the ground more or less intact. But fate has, once again, turned her back on him...

[mcaplinger]

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.

Well put. It also seems to me that many of the "features" are aligned with the downtrack direction of the image and are thus likely to be residual pixel-to-pixel variations.

People can believe what they want, but I think there is an element of wishful thinking in the Beagle team's claim. MSSS took these images in 2004 and examined them closely. The MSSS position is made pretty clear on the page at http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/31/ -- "no incontrovertible evidence of the Beagle 2 lander was found within the areas imaged by MOC". To make claims that the Beagle landing system was without flaws and failed only due to highly-improbable terrain factors would, it seems to me, require evidence far less equivocal than this.

It seems a bit odd that it took them over a year to "painstakingly study" this image and come to their conclusion.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

It was originaly suspected that the crater visible in these images might have been produced by Beagle 2 impacting the surface at very high speed, not that Beagle 2 may have come down IN the pre-existing crater itself. The former scenario is the one discounted by MSSS.

[mcaplinger]

The former scenario is the one discounted by MSSS.

The crater was clearly too large to have been created by the Beagle impact, as noted on the MSSS page. I think we would have been open to the possibility that Beagle was inside a pre-existing crater, had the image supported that interpretation. There are many craters in the search area that have dark sand in them; it's not at all unusual.

This is, of course, not an official MSSS statement, but I don't think anyone here would argue with it.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Take a look at slide 5 on the Beagle website:


Also......will MRO REALLY be able to resolve this for what it really is?

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[RNeuhaus]

I am still not convinced about the Beagle 2's landing position. My questions are:

It was redited after a more toughts and research.

Dec 19 8:11:00 Seperation from Mars Express. Beagle 2 will orbit around Mars for almost 6 days.

Dec 25 2:47:48 Desaceleration. Highest temperature is 1,700 Centigrades at 120 km heigth.

Dec 25 2:51:02 Open parachute at the height of 2,6 km of Mars surface.


Dec 25 2:51:20 Turn on the altimeter and it checks the altimeter 10 times per seconds.

Dec 25 2:51:45 Inflate the air bags at 275 meters of altitude. The altimeter detects the presence of surface and activate the inflation of airbags.


Dec 25 2:52:00 First bounce (15 seconds) at 58 km/sec.
Sixth bounce (10 seconds)
Tenth bounce (6 seconds)

Dec 25 2:54:00 rest on Isidis Plantia after 12 bounces.

-Separation of airbags from Beagle 2 which was inside of a big Airbag.
-The three airbags were fired away from Beagle 2.
Dec 25 5:30:00 Try to contact with Mars Odyssey.



1) The picture shows FOUR dark spots. They aren't of the same size. The Right and down are of similar sizes, the Up is bigger and the Left is the biggest. Different sizes.... Let suppose there is 3 airbags which are of white color and the fourth might be of lander, heatshield or backcover. Then let suppose that the heatshield or backcover must fall far away from the mini-crater. Because of the different sizes of airbag might lead to the different degree of deflation?

2) According to the above picture, the Beagle 2 might be found with its open top cap because of its greater size (the Left Hand) or it has not opened its cover (the right hand). Well, now where is the heatshield or backcover?

3) Beagle is so light (perhaps between 60kg in Earth and 22 kg in Mars). It is rather very light and it would not have bounced and traveled much distance as MER did. According to the initial estimates, it would have bounced 10 times which is not the same as mentioned in the picture with 4 disturbed top surface. The distance of bounce would be greater and not merely inside of 20 meter crater.

4) However, the first bounce is big and it might be the first bounce which was of one big airbag.

Rodolfo

[djellison]

MRO will be able to identify the airbags if they are there. 1 - 1.5 m across would be a minimum of 3 full pixels across, potentially 9 to 12 pixels of area for each airbag, and almost as imporantly, some element of colour.

Compare my simulated images of Oppy at MOC-CPROTO and MRO-HIRISE - granted, these are probably a little optimistic, but hey...





Doug