Beagle 2 Information

The Beagle 2 was a British Mars lander that was transported by the European Space Agencys 2003 Mars Express mission. It was an astrobiology mission that would have looked for past life on the shallow surface of Mars.

The spacecraft was successfully deployed from the Mars Express on 19 December 2003 and was scheduled to land on the surface of Mars on 25 December; however, no contact was received at the expected time of landing on Mars. ESA declared the mission lost in February 2004, after numerous attempts to contact the spacecraft were made.

The Beagle 2s fate remained a mystery until January 2015 when it was located on the surface of Mars in a series of images from NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE camera. The images suggest that it landed safely, but two of the spacecrafts four solar panels failed to deploy, blocking the spacecrafts communications antenna.

The Beagle 2 is named after HMS Beagle, the ship used by Charles Darwin.

The Beagle 2 was conceived by a group of British academics headed by Professor Colin Pillinger of the Open University, in collaboration with the University of Leicester. The project was designed and developed by several UK academics and companies. Its purpose was to search for signs of life on Mars, past or present, and its name reflected this goal, as Pillinger explained:

Isidis Planitia, an enormous flat sedimentary basin that overlies the boundary between the ancient highlands and the northern plains of Mars, was chosen as the landing site and a 50 by 8 kilometres (31.1 by 5.0 mi) ellipse centered on 11°32′N 90°30′E / 11.53°N 90.50°E / 11.53; 90.50 was selected. The lander was expected to operate for about 180 days and an extended mission of up to one Martian year (687 Earth days) was thought possible. The Beagle 2 lander objectives were to characterise the landing site geology, mineralogy, geochemistry and oxidation state, the physical properties of the atmosphere and surface layers, collect data on Martian meteorology, climate, and search for biosignatures.

The Principal Investigator, Colin Pillinger, set up a consortium to design and build the Beagle 2. The principal members and their initial responsibilities were:

In 2000, when the main development phase started, Astrium took over responsibility for programme management, and Leicester assumed responsibility for mission management which involved the preparations for the operations post launch and the operations control centre.

In an effort to publicise the project and gain financial support, its designers sought and received the endorsement and participation of British artists. The missions call-sign was composed by the band Blur, and the test card (Calibration Target Plate) intended for calibrating Beagle 2s cameras and spectrometers after landing was painted by Damien Hirst.

The Lander Operations Control Centre (LOCC) was located at the National Space Centre in Leicester, from which the spacecraft was being controlled, and was visible to the public visiting the centre. The control centre included operational systems for controlling Beagle 2, analysis tools for processing engineering and scientific telemetry, virtual reality tools for preparing activity sequences, communications systems, and the Ground Test Model (GTM). The GTM was composed of various builds of the Beagle 2 systems, collected together to provide a full set of lander electronics. The GTM was used nearly continuously to validate the engineering and science commands, to rehearse the landing sequence, and to validate the onboard software.

Funding:

The budget was secret at that time but has been estimated to be between GB£30 and 50 million, which at then current exchange rates would be about €43-71 million or US$54-89 million.New Scientist magazine reported a budget of GB£40 million for Beagle 2, and another outlet said GB£50 million. However, some of the work is known to have been donated or done at-cost.

Beagle 2 has a robotic arm known as the Payload Adjustable Workbench (PAW), designed to be extended after landing. The arm is 109 cm (43 in) long when fully extended, and it can reach about 70 cm (28 in) to the nearest rocks. The PAW contains a pair of stereo cameras, a microscope (with a 6 micrometre resolution), a Mössbauer spectrometer, an X-ray spectrometer, a drill for collecting rock samples and a spot lamp.

Rock samples were to be passed by the PAW into a mass spectrometer and gas chromatograph in the body of the lander - the GAP (Gas Analysis Package), to measure the relative proportions of different isotopes of carbon and methane. Since carbon is thought to be the basis of all life, these readings could have revealed whether the samples contained the remnants of living organisms. Atmospheric methane is another signature of existing life, although geological processes can also be a source.

Beagle 2 is also equipped with a small sample retrieval tool named Planetary Undersurface Tool or PLUTO (nicknamed the mole), that would have been deployed by the robotic arm. PLUTO has a compressed spring mechanism designed to enable it to move across the surface at a rate of 20 mm per second and to burrow into the ground and collect a subsurface sample in a cavity in its tip. PLUTO is attached to the lander by a 3 m power cable which could be used as a winch to bring the sample back to the lander. It had the capability to burrow to depths down to 1.5 m.

The lander has the shape of a shallow bowl with a diameter of 1 m (39.4 in) and a depth of 0.25 m (9.8 in). The cover of the lander is hinged and folded open to reveal the interior of the craft which holds a UHF antenna, the 0.75 m (2.5 ft) long robot arm, and the scientific equipment. The main body also contains the battery, telecommunications, electronics, and central processor, heaters, and additional payload items (radiation and oxidation sensors). The lid itself should have unfolded to expose four disk-shaped solar arrays. The lander package has a mass of 69 kg (152 lb) at launch but the actual lander was only 33.2 kg (73 lb) at touchdown.

The ground segment[clarification needed] was derived from the European Space Agency software kernel known as SCOS2000. In keeping with the low cost theme of the mission, the control software was the first of its type designed on a laptop computer.

Mars Express launched from Baikonur on 2 June 2003 at 17:45 UTC. Beagle 2 was a Mars lander initially mounted on the top deck of the Mars Express orbiter. It was released from the orbiter on a ballistic trajectory towards Mars on 19 December 2003. Beagle 2 coasted for six days after release and entered the Martian atmosphere at about 20,000 km/h (12,000 mph) on the morning of 25 December. The lander was protected from the heat of entry by a heat shield coated with NORCOAT, an ablating material made by EADS. Compression of the Martian atmosphere and radiation from the hot gas are estimated to have led to a peak heating rate of around 100 W/cm².

After deceleration in the Martian atmosphere, parachutes deployed, and at about 200 m above the surface large airbags inflated around the lander to protect it when it hit the surface. Landing occurred at about 02:45 UTC on 25 December 2003.

After analysis of the imagery obtained in 2015, it has been conjectured that after landing, the bags deflated and the top of the lander opened. However these images suggest that at most only two of the four solar panels deployed. A signal was supposed to be sent to Mars Express after landing and another the next (local) morning to confirm that Beagle 2 survived the landing and the first night on Mars. A panoramic image of the landing area was then supposed to be taken using the stereo camera and a pop-up mirror, after which the lander arm would have been released. The lander arm was to dig up samples to be deposited in the various instruments for study, and the "mole" would have been deployed, crawling across the surface to a distance of about 3 metres from the lander and burrowing under rocks to collect soil samples for analysis.

Complete article available at this page.