ESA Prepares To Bid Adieu
No contact has been
made with the Beagle 2 lander, despite repeated efforts over the
last few days to communicate via the Mars Express and Mars Odyssey
spacecraft and the Jodrell Bank radio telescope in Cheshire,
UK.
At a press briefing in London on Monday afternoon, members of
the Beagle 2 team described the latest efforts to contact their
missing lander.
"We haven't found Beagle 2, despite three days of intensive
searching," said Professor Colin Pillinger, lead scientist for
Beagle 2. "Under those circumstances, we have to begin to accept
that, if Beagle 2 is on the Martian surface, it is not active.
"That isn't to say that we are going to give up on Beagle. There
is one more thing that we can do - however, it is very much a last
resort. We will be asking the American Odyssey spacecraft (team)
tomorrow whether they will send an embedded command - a hail to
Beagle with a command inside it. If it gets through, it will tell
Beagle to switch off and reload the software. We are now working on
the basis that there is a corrupt system and the only way we might
resurrect is to send that command."
"We can also ask Mars Express to send that command. However,
they cannot send it probably until the 2 or 3 February," he
added.
"We'll move with the next phase in the search for Beagle 2,"
said Professor Pillinger. "We have discussed on our side of the
house what we intend to do in the future. We are dedicated to
trying to refly Beagle 2 in some shape or form, therefore we need
to know how far it got because we need know which parts of this
mission we don't have to study in further detail."
Detailing the efforts to contact Beagle 2 in recent days, Mark
Sims, Beagle 2 Mission Manager from the University of Leicester,
explained that the lander should have entered an emergency
communication mode known as CSM2 no later than 22 January. In this
mode, the spacecraft's receiver is switched on throughout daylight
hours on Mars. The only possible explanation that no communication
has been established during the last few days is that the landers
battery is in a low state of charge.
Meanwhile, the academia-industry 'Tiger Team' at the National
Space Centre in Leicester is beginning to concentrate on detailed
analysis of the possible causes for failure of the mission and the
lessons that can be learned for future missions.
The analysis of the mission now under way includes an assessment
of the landing site ellipse from orbital images, reanalysis of
atmospheric conditions during the entry into the Martian atmosphere
on 25 December, examination of the separation from Mars Express and
of the cruise phase preceding arrival at Mars.
One extremely useful piece of evidence could be provided by an
image of the lander. The team is hoping that the High Resolution
Stereo Camera on Mars Express or the camera on board Mars Global
Surveyor may eventually be able to capture an image that reveals
its location on the Martian surface.