http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3591748.stm

The investigation looked at possible technical reasons for the loss of the probe and the lessons learnt which might benefit any future missions.

The team maintains its belief that a thinner than expected atmosphere may have thwarted a controlled landing.

Full post-mortem by the B2 chaps

http://www.src.le.ac.uk/projects/beagle2/report/

Doug

Sorry for losing my patience, but I really cannot sit here and let Pillinger and his team of similar self-serving nincompoops alibi themselves -- and then, on top of that, have the unbelievable gall (or idiocy) to request that NASA should have its 2009 MSL rover carry a complete copy of Beagle 2 as a STATIONARY PACKAGE, TO WHICH MSL WOULD RETURN PERIODICALLY TO FEED IT SAMPLES -- instead of (at absolute most) carrying copies of a few of Beagle's best instruments along with it. Pillinger is the Ahmad Chalabi of planetary exploration.

It is indeed possible that Beagle might have been wrecked by the fact that Mars' atmosphere was (moderately) thinner than the average during its landing. There are also at least a dozen other possible causes of the acident, as the report pointed out, thanks to the Beagle team's ridiculous corner-cutting. And even if the failure was connected to that thin air, it was only MODERATELY thinner than the Martian average, not freakishly so -- which means that it was the Beagle team's obvious responsibility to develop a landing system capable of coping with such a highly possible fluctuation.

What's really depressing is to watch the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph cross their usual ideological lines to both make affectionate sounds about Pillinger's "characteristic cheek" in making his lunatic demand of NASA. Memo to Brits: this is NOT the right way for Britain to get back into the space race.

Quite agree - this makes me drop any hint of respect I had for the guy. Asking NASA to turn a $1B+ probe into his man-servent isnt even laughable. It's tragic. It's not even plausable, and certainly not the best way of getting his instruments to mars. I hope there's a swathe of JPL guys just laughing at the idea. Any chance the guy had of getting a Beagle clone to mars just went out the windows.

Pillinger had the perfect opportunity here in the UK post Beagle 2 to do something with the enormous ammount of good will towards the project even though it failed. He's just blown it. There are ways and means for him to have sorted funds to perhaps build a couple of augmented B2's (larger = more room for robustness) and a dedicated orbiter for a couple of hundred million quid, and done the job properly. Alternatively, take GAP and offer it up as an instrument to fly on Phoenix, MSL and any further lander project.

The one thing you dont say is "Right - nasa - we'll build another one. You take it to mars and then feed it samples" - not only is that just down right stupid - but you just shot yourself in the foot regarding the whole argument that you never needed wheels in the first place!

For what it's worth - the corner cutting and lack of testing for Beagle 2 was never something any of the team wanted. It was just something that had to happen on the fiscal and chronologic constraints they (Self) imposed by trying to do the thing in the first place. Lest we forget ( and two MER's makes it very VERY easy to do so ) - going to mars remains bloody hard, Nasa having 4 spacecraft fail at the '99 opportunity. I'm STILL glad that Pilliinger tried to do Beagle 2 even knowing what I do now - because there's STILL amazing interest and support for the project here in the UK. But he's running, if not run out of time in terms of doing something sensible about it. I was weeks away from getting a question asked in Parliment about this by my MP - then he suddenly died. Chances of our new Lib-Dem MP caring one iota about space is nil.

But you're right - the guys lost it if he things Nasa arnt going to have a very good laugh at the idea of MSL playing butler. The whole concept is simply laughable. I hope that the opportunity arrises for me to tackle him about the issue personally in the near future. I just want to make sure that somehow he's not been miss-reported.

Doug

Well, to quote Oliver Morton's Mars blog ( http://mainlymartian.blogs.com/semijournal..._.html#comments ):

"Colin also said that he’d written to NASA about the possibility of flying a Beagle package as part of the 2009 mission. He painted a sweet picture of the MSL scurrying around picking up samples and bringing them back to little Beagle for consideration. However, it’s very hard to believe that Colin really believes this is plausible, and there’s no reason at all why any of the rest of us should -- despite the fact that this, to judge by the mood of the media at the meeting, will be the idea that gets picked up in the papers."

It was.