** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

Have they found Beagle 2? there's a conference in London tomorrow about Beagle 2, can't see what else it is.
For those who need a reminder, uk lead ESA mission to mars, Beagle 2 detached from the orbiting satellite, entered the atmosphere and never heard from again in 2003.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_2

Edit - Actually seems confirmed that they will release photos of it and that it actually landed intact.
 
Last edited:
Beagle2 found intact.

So close to success as well....

Many scientists assumed it had been destroyed in a high-velocity impact.

The new pictures, acquired by Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, give the lie to that notion, and hint at what really happened to the European mission.

Beagle's design incorporated a series of deployable "petals", on which were mounted its solar panels.

From the images, it seems that this system did not unfurl fully.

"Without full deployment, there is no way we could have communicated with it as the radio frequency antenna was under the solar panels," explained Prof Mark Sims, Beagle's mission manager from Leicester University.

"The failure cause is pure speculation, but it could have been, and probably was, down to sheer back luck - a heavy bounce perhaps distorting the structure as clearances on solar panel deployment weren't big; or a punctured and slowly leaking airbag not separating sufficiently from the lander, causing a hang-up in deployment," he told BBC News.
Click to expand...
 
A set of three observations with the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera shows Beagle 2 partially deployed on the surface of the planet, ending the mystery of what happened to the mission more than a decade ago. They show that the lander survived its Dec. 25, 2003, touchdown enough to at least partially deploy its solar arrays.
Click to expand...

 
Good that its been found, but to claim it was lost due to luck is a bit of a stretch. Sounds more like design flaws that weren't thought about properly during its development. (or maybe were but dismissed due to costs/time.)
 
Last edited:
Oh wow, photos of falcon 9 falling over and a bit more detail. When the oil ran out the fins went hard left and the rockets tried but failed to compensate. The chance of a success on the next launch (29th of Jan) has to be high.

nlpk78.jpg

2ceq4hk.jpg

npglrk.jpg
 
wheres the dramatic video you promised us in the thread title?

EDIT: thanks for the update/edit ;)
i dont watch adverts though so il take your word for it being dramatic n stuff :)
 
Last edited:
cainer said:
wheres the dramatic video you promised us in the thread title?

EDIT: thanks for the update/edit ;)
i dont watch adverts though so il take your word for it being dramatic n stuff :)
Click to expand...

There is a second video at the bottom of the page which plays without adverts...

Also, get an adblocker ;). Didn't even realise there were adverts in the first video until you said and I quickly turned off AdBlock.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom