August 25th, 2004del.icio.us Digg Reddit StumbleUpon
Beagle 2 Report Released
Written by Fraser Cain
The UK-built Beagle 2 lander should have been on the surface of Mars, communicating with Earth for months now. But for some reason, shortly after it entered the Martian atmosphere, the small lander went silent, and it hasn't been heard from since. Several inquiries have already been held, but now the mission operations team has released its own report to try and explain what could have gone wrong. The report provides a thorough list of ways the lander could have failed mechanically, but suggests that it was mostly likely that it failed during the entry, descent, and landing phase; probably because the atmosphere was less dense than the designers were expecting.
Filed under: Mars
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