Beagle 2. Arse. £45 million damp squib?

Bugs ****ing Bunny · December 25, 2003, 08:22

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/spa...gle/index.html

Not good.

Drake Tungsten · December 25, 2003, 08:58

Let's hope the sweet strain of 'Far Out' comes through soon...

Snotty · December 25, 2003, 09:12

Quote:

Professor Colin Pillinger told a press conference Thursday morning the lack of signal does not necessarily mean failure and offered five possible scenarios:

• The spacecraft landed in the wrong place

• The craft's transmitting antenna landed disoriented and cannot fully open

• There is a communications mis-match between NASA's orbiting Mars Global Surveyor and Beagle 2

• A failure during entry descent damaged the spacecraft

Whats the 5th? Aliens shot it down?

laurentius · December 25, 2003, 09:23

AFAIK its worth £35 million. And its supposed to shut itself down-or go to hibernation- for the first night to reload its batteries. So the next chance for it to start transmitting is about 2200 GMT tonight

Space05us · December 25, 2003, 10:12

I called this one the other day in a chat room. Some chick was getting all worked up because it was Europe's first mission to Mars. She quoted something as saying that it was built faster and cheaper than most other things of its kind, I told her the American way worked better; longer, harder, very expensive.

edit: I said that an "accident"

would happen in order to draw attention to the Europena Space Program.

edit2: I have no idea where Im going with this post.(Im going back to bed)

General Ludd · December 25, 2003, 10:14

Quote:

Originally posted by Space05us
I told her the American way worked better; longer, harder, very expensive.

Indeed. NASA are the masters of ****ing up

europe can't even be compared.

VetLegion · December 25, 2003, 11:42

Hey, what about the Russkies, they send a probe with a camera and the camera shutter melts so they see a black screen. Took them a while to figure that one too

Tripledoc · December 25, 2003, 12:14

The positive news (spin) is that the "orbit insertion manoeuvre was a complete success." In fact Mars Express is now spinning around mars.

http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/index.html

Eli · December 25, 2003, 14:07

Bummer.

Oerdin · December 25, 2003, 14:21

The US loses about half of it's Mars probes but everyone else seems to lose all of their Mars probes.

General Ludd · December 25, 2003, 14:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Oerdin
The US loses about half of it's Mars probes but everyone else seems to lose all of their Mars probes.

How many astronauts does everyone else lose?

Gatekeeper · December 25, 2003, 14:51

That was a low blow, Osweld.

Eli · December 25, 2003, 14:55

Quote:

How many astronauts does everyone else lose?

How many astronauts does everyone else launch?

MichaeltheGreat · December 25, 2003, 14:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Osweld

How many astronauts does everyone else lose?

How many astronauts do they fly?

Az · December 25, 2003, 14:58

Yay! Osweld got pelted by the crowd!

General Ludd · December 25, 2003, 15:18

Az · December 25, 2003, 15:32

yourself.

On topic: Is it final yet? or will they try again to make contact?

such a shame.

Whaleboy · December 25, 2003, 15:49

Pillinger deserves as big a failure as possible for two reasons. His hair, and his accent. Scientific progress takes a back seat to the essential task of deriding this terrorist animal.

Why is it that when hairy men try to probe parts distant, it invariably ends in a ****-up?

Tripledoc · December 25, 2003, 16:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Azazel
On topic: Is it final yet? or will they try again to make contact?

I think contact will be tried again when the Mothership passes over the landing spot at 22.30 GMT, which is not so long from now.

Hueij · December 25, 2003, 18:43

On the bright side: next months we will laugh at the Americans when their two probes fail

Az · December 25, 2003, 18:47

"mothership". this sounds so cool.

Tripledoc · December 25, 2003, 20:35

The beagle 2 website now reports:

"A search for a Beagle 2 radio signal was carried out this evening without success."

So that's it I guess.

Drake Tungsten · December 25, 2003, 21:15

Alex James must be really pissed off right now.

Ned · December 25, 2003, 21:20

Everything project has three fundamentals: time, cost and quality. Each is a slice of pie. Increase one, the others shrink.

When NASA went to faster, cheaper under Clinton, quality suffered tremendously.

I am surprised to hear that the Europeans (and probably the Japanese) still adhere to faster, cheaper at the expense of quality. This is a proven formula for disaster in space.

Skanky Burns · December 25, 2003, 21:20

I wonder what went wrong with it.

Tripledoc · December 25, 2003, 21:33

Whoops. Got it wrong actually. It was the Odysseus Nasa satellite, launched back in 2001, that tried to contact the Beagle 2. The Mars Express, the actual mothership, has not yet settled into a true orbit yet, but is merely spinning into true orbit. So the chance is perhaps still that contact will be made.

Ned · December 26, 2003, 03:07

dp

Dis · December 26, 2003, 03:07

I really had good hopes for this one. I was going to post a thread as we (we includes the Brits and other countries in this case

), there are some more probes on the way

Tripledoc · December 26, 2003, 22:26

Only NASA spacecraft have so far been able to fail to make contact,which means a questions as to that contact was unsuccesful?

Therefore, when the Mars Express is placed into true orbit, true contact will be made according to a calculation that is too difficult to explain. However, when the Mars Express has settled onto true orbit, true commmunication will perhaps take place.
This is because, in fact, the Mars Express is the only satellite capable of making contact to Beagle 2. In fact several experiments have been taking place involving radio contact between Beagle 2 and the Mothership: Mars Express. No forms of commmunication have ever been simulated between other space-born or sattelite objects.

Well, .....

Whoha · December 27, 2003, 00:04

Our CIA station chief on mars will certainly reap the rewards for knocking out Europes and Japans probe.