RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Mars

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Japan Forced to Give Up on Its Explorer Mission to Mars

From Associated Press


TOKYO — Japan abandoned its troubled mission to Mars on Tuesday after space officials failed in their final effort to put the Nozomi probe back on course to orbit the Red Planet.

The probe, Japan's first interplanetary explorer, had been traveling for five years toward Mars and would have reached the planet next week.

But officials at JAXA, Japan's space agency, said that Nozomi was off target and that scientists gave up trying to salvage the mission after an attempt to fire the probe's engines failed because it was short on fuel.

Nozomi — which means "hope" — was to have circled Mars to determine whether the planet has a magnetic field. It also was to examine the evolving Martian atmosphere's interaction with the solar wind — a stream of highly charged particles coming from the sun — and inspect the planet's two moons.

Malfunctions during Nozomi's journey altered its trajectory, raising concerns it might crash into — and possibly contaminate — the planet's surface.

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(There. edited in order to print the entire article. I forget that most of you don't subscribe to the L.A. Times so you don't all have cookies on your comp to view articles.)


No surprise there. Uncanny how most Mars probes, no matter how many you send up, all end up failing....

Also to continue this space colony discussion:

Humans 'could survive Mars visit'
Scientists say measurements taken by the US space agency's Mars Odyssey craft prove that a human mission could survive on the Martian surface.

And finally...


"Smoking Gun" Evidence That Liquid Water Has Flowed on Mars?

By the way Rob, is there any way to make this an avatar?

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Second Setback for British Mission to Mars

LONDON (Reuters) - A British mission trying to find life on Mars suffered a second setback when its space probe again failed to send a signal to confirm it had landed, project organizers said on Friday.

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Beagle 2's latest failure to make contact capped a dismal Christmas Day for the mission's British scientists, trying to answer a question which has fascinated mankind for years -- "Is there life on Mars?"

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Well, if there is, they're certainly [censored] camera shy!!!



http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast24may_1.htm

http://www.msss.com/education/facepage/face.html

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December 28, 2003


THE WORLD
Day 3: Still No Signal From Mars Probe

Scientists say they aren't 'writing off' Beagle. They hope the mother ship will be able to contact the lander.

By Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writer

Britain's Beagle 2 Mars lander remained silent for a third day Saturday, and scientists believe that their best hope for receiving a signal is the spacecraft's mother ship.

Mars Express, Beagle 2's mother ship produced by the European Space Agency, entered orbit around the Red Planet on Christmas Eve, about the same time that Beagle was scheduled to land on the surface. Controllers have to make a complicated series of maneuvers before it will be in position to contact the lander.

"We haven't yet played all our cards," said David Southwood, ESA's director of science. "The baby, we believe, is down on the surface, and the mother is very anxious to get in touch."

Mission planners have been using daily passes of NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter over Isidis Planitia, Beagle's Martian landing site, to try to contact the probe. British authorities reached an agreement with NASA for use of Odyssey after Mars Express was launched, so the two communications systems have never been tested together, lead scientist Colin Pillinger said.

The team has already used Odyssey to send a series of commands to Beagle, ordering it to reset its internal clock and to open its pocket-watch-like pod and extend its antenna — in case one or more of those operations failed after the landing. None of the commands produced a response, however.

Saturday, European officials asked NASA engineers to double-check Odyssey to make sure it is functioning correctly. The orbiter's communication system was temporarily shut down by a massive solar flare in October.

Mars Odyssey will continue to attempt to contact Beagle on its daily flyovers for at least 12 more days.

The team also has been listening for a signal from Beagle with the 250-foot Jodrell Bank radio telescope in Cheshire, England, and, more recently, with a smaller radio telescope at Stanford University in California. The telescopes can detect a signal from Beagle, but are not equipped to radio commands to the lander.

Engineers are not "writing off" Beagle, Southwood said, "and I don't think anyone should. We're hanging in there."

Beagle 2 is the first of three landers scheduled to reach Mars within the next month. NASA's Spirit and Opportunity are to land Jan. 3 and Jan. 24, respectively.

The three probes are part of an intensive effort to determine whether life ever existed on Mars.

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They've now lost Beagle 2.

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OUT OF THIS WORLD!

As the rest of the country settles down with the turkey today (December 25), members of BLUR will be holed up inside CHESHIRE’s JODRELL BANK OBSERVATORY – waiting on word back from life on Mars.

Today sees the climax of the band-backed Beagle 2 project, the British effort to land on Mars. If things go to plan, the probe will land on the planet’s surface on Christmas Day and the first signal we Earthlings will hear back will be a Blur song.

Scientists are waiting for the signal, which wasn't heard when the probe was supposed to land in the early hours of this morning. However, there is still a chance the signal will be heard later today.

Dave Rowntree explained that the band became involved with the project back in 1999, at the height of the campaign for their album ‘13’. He told NME.COM: "Alex [James] and I have always been fascinated by space exploration. They’d been going round banging their heads against a brick wall trying to get the funding. That’s where we came in. Because we had access to the media we were able to help out."

However, Blur soon became more involved with the project, masterminded by Open University Professor Colin Pillinger. He continued: "They came up with such an ingenious scheme. When the probe lands it has to send a signal back to say that it’s landed, and that signal could be anything. And we said why not write a piece of music?"

Damon Albarn composed ‘Beagle 2’, a song which first appeared as a B-side to their 1999 single ‘No Distance Left To Run’. Today the team will be holed up in Jodrell Bank awaiting news of whether the Beagle has landed. If does, it will be the best Christmas present Dave has ever been given.

"Britain’s got great telescopes and great engineers, but we’ve never traditionally had a space programme to match that," Dave told NME.COM. "Yet this might actually answer the question, is there life on Mars?"

Beagle is able to burrow into the surface of Mars. By probing, the team believe they can identify whether there has ever been water on the planet. Water would be the biggest breakthrough in discovering whether the planet has ever been capable of sustaining life.

The probe was named after the HMS Beagle, the vessel on which Charles Darwin began the epic voyage that led to the writing ‘On The Origin Of Species’.




[url=http://www.nme.com/news/107112.htm[/url]

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YOU BASTARDS!

YOU BLEW MY COVA!

I'LL KILL YOU!

BASTARDS!

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