The Ongoing Mars Explorer Thread (1 Viewer)

[John Miles]

At some point, we're going to have to quit throwing money away on cut-rate Mars travel packages and do the job right. :frowning:

 

[Peter Kline]

John,

No. This is the way to go. The newest Mars probes by Britain and the upcoming U.S. landings are much cheaper then the previous ones that failed. We've learned that putting all our eggs in one basket with an expensive mission is the wrong way.

Peter

 

[BrianShort]

No signal was picked up by the radio dish in the UK... This is not looking good for the Beagle 2 :frowning:

Brian

 

[BrianW]

I don't consider it likely that a ground-based receiver would be able to detect a direct signal from Beagle 2, so I don't see this as a bad sign. And the first opportunity for Mars Odyssey to catch a signal from Beagle 2 was not seen as very likely because it is doubtful whether Beagle 2's batteries would have had time to charge, even if everything went perfectly. But that the second opportunity for Beagle 2 to relay a message through Mars Odyssey has slipped by is indeed a bad sign.

However, Mars Odyssey just presented a lucky, if not very likely to succeed, opportunity to get an early peek at Beagle 2's progress. It's the Mars Express that's actually designed to relay messages from the Beagle 2 back to Earth, and it won't be ready to listen until after the new year.

Patience...

 

[BrianShort]

Actually, the 2nd Mars Odyssey opportunity is the evening of Dec 26th. The only things that have passed are the first Odyssey window and the dish window.

Brian

 

[Peter Kline]

Brian's,

Things are not looking good. Historically, of the previous 11 probes dropped on to the planet's surface, only three have survived and it is estimated that around two in every three Russian and U.S. missions to Mars have been whole or partial failures.




Peter

 

[Philip_G]

good thing it's british and not boeing

 

[BrianW]

Dang time zone mathematics...

Peter, I know Mars missions have been horribly jinxed in the past, but until the Mars Express is in a position to do its job properly, I'm not ready to write this one off.

If only Mars had an ocean in which to splash down...

 

[Jack Briggs]

The bitter irony of what you just said is that these landing missions are looking for past signs of water and oceans on Mars.

 

[Peter Kline]

The Mars Express as well as the orbiting U.S. satellite (can't remember the name at the moment) orbiting Jack's home planet have tried in vain to contact Beagle2. (Beagles can be very tempermental I'm afraid).

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Is Lucas Aerospace involved in the Beagle2 design? I've been around too many British car clubs to have high hopes for "Lucas electrics" to function on Mars.

 

[BrianW]

Peter, I'm pretty sure the Mars Express has not had an opportunity to contact Beagle2, and will not have an opportunity for at least a week. This doesn't make the Odyssey failures any less worrisome, though, since Odyssey's sideline business is indeed to report back with traffic alerts.

 

[Peter Kline]

Brian,

According to the Beagle 2 site:


Because of the time necessary to have the Mars Express obtain a proper orbit, it was planned to detect signals from Beagle 2 from NASA's orbiter in the interim. Unfortunately, this has not happened nor have scans of the surface by telescopes found "the needle in the haystack" lander. I'm afraid it's lost, eaten by a Martian for lunch. Damn.

 

[BrianW]

Right. My point was simply that the Mars Express has yet to "try in vain" to contact Beagle2 because it's still applying the brakes to get into the proper orbit.

And until Mars Express does try to establish contact with Beagle2, I still hold out hope. Beagle2 was specifically designed and ground-tested to work with Mars Express. Though Beagle2 is supposed to be compatible with the Mars Odyssey, it was never actually tested with it, nor is the Mars Odyssey designed specifically for communication with Beagle2. While the existence of communications standards would make one think that contacting Earth through Odyssey vs. Express would be as simple as using a different modem to contact a dialup ISP, things are much more complex here given that we have to deal with orbital inclinations, terrain, actual location of Beagle2, availability of solar energy to maintain batteries, and seldom-overlapping windows of opportunity that may have gone to zero if Beagle2 somehow "rebooted" its clock and is trying to contact Odyssey while it's in no position to hear it.

In a few days (according to my understanding), Beagle2, if intact, will shift to a mode in which it sends out a constant, rather than timed, signal so that both Odyssey and Express will be able to hear it when they pass over it.

I know it looks bad, but until Mars Express gets a chance to do its stuff, I'm not ready to write this one off.

 

[Peter Kline]

On Jan 4, the British orbiter will attempt contact. Even though it was specifically designed to do this, the U.S. orbiter had the ability to contact Beagle 2 as well. This was part of the plan. I hope you're right but all the attempts to locate the lander via telescope and radio telescope have failed. Starting on Jan 5, the Mars Odyssey orbiter will be used for the upcoming twin landings of the U.S. craft and Mars Express will take over. Based on previous landing attempts this is following the same pattern of failure I'm afraid.

Meanwhile from BBC:

Japanese Mars mission 'abandoned'

Nozomi: The mission has lasted five years and five months

Japan has given up on its first interplanetary space mission on the final leg of the journey to Mars.

Officials have decided not to put the Nozomi space craft into orbit around the planet.

Last-ditch attempts to fix an onboard electrical fault have failed, and the probe will be steered off into space.

This will stop Nozomi crashing into Mars and possibly contaminating its environment, which may once have harboured life - and perhaps still does.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said a final attempt was made on Tuesday to remotely repair electronic circuitry on the Nozomi probe.

"But we failed to fix the short-circuit in the electric system and, as the result, we gave up the plan to place Nozomi into orbit around Mars," said researcher Yasunori Matogawa.

A spokesman for the Embassy of Japan in the UK confirmed that the mission had been aborted.

Collision course

Nozomi will now be directed away from Mars to stop it crashing into the planet.

It will probably end up circling the Sun somewhere beyond the fourth planet. But the agency has not lost all hope of getting something out of the mission.

Engineers will continue trying to fix the circuit so that they can use the probe for other space observations.

Nozomi, which means "hope" in Japanese, was launched in July 1998 and should have arrived at Mars the following autumn.

But it has been dogged by technical problems since soon after take off. A technical fault left Nozomi low on fuel and its flight path had to be radically altered to get it to the Red Planet.

Two fly-bys around the Earth put it back on track, but the craft was exposed to a solar flare that damaged its electrical systems.

Rocket failure

The abandonment of the Mars mission is the latest setback for Japan's space programme.

Last month, it was forced to destroy a rocket carrying two spy satellites intended to monitor North Korea.

Officials said the rocket had to be destroyed after take-off because of an unspecified technical failure.

It came just weeks after China's recent success in sending an astronaut into space.

 

[Peter Kline]

Go here
for upcoming Spirit and Opportunity rover landings information next month.

 

[BrianW]

Thanks, Peter.

 

[Peter Kline]

You're welcome Earthling.:alien:

 

[Peter Kline]

Another visitor to visit Mars on Saturday the 3rd:



Complete story here.

 

[BrianShort]

Let's hope this one works!

Brian