(Image: Parkewr/HIRISE/JPL/NASA)
Beagle 2, the UK spacecraft thought lost on the surface of Mars in 2003, has now been found. It seems the probe successfully landed but did not fully deploy its solar panels, meaning it could not communicate with Earth. But the spacecraft may have scientific data stored in its memory that human astronauts could one day retrieve.
The Beagle 2 team found their missing lander in images taken by a current NASA spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and announced their discovery at a press conference at the Royal Society in London this morning. 鈥淏eagle 2 is no longer lost,鈥 said David Parker of the UK Space Agency. 鈥淲e are not looking at a crash site.鈥
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The probe was deployed to the surface of Mars on Christmas Day 2003 from the European Space Agency鈥檚 Mars Express spacecraft. A parachute was meant to slow its descent and airbags should have protected it as it touched down, but when no signal was received back, the team assumed it had crashed. Now a handful of images of the landing area have revealed it touched down safely after all.
Beagle 2 is shaped like two dustbin lids put together and was designed to open and unfold four solar panels. The probe is only 2 metres across when fully deployed, so spotting it meant hunting through billions of pixels from stacks of images, but the first signs came from a picture taken in 2013. After further pictures, the latest of which came in yesterday, and careful analysis, the NASA and Beagle 2 teams are pretty sure they鈥檝e found it.
鈥淲e have something with very high relative brightness compared to the surround terrain,鈥 said John Bridges of the University of Leicester, UK. The tell-tale glint of flat solar panels means they must be looking at something from Earth, he added. 鈥淭his is an alien object.鈥
UK鈥檚 claim to Mars
It鈥檚 not clear exactly what happened, but the team believes Beagle 2 was able to deploy up to three of its solar panels and may even have played a song specifically composed for the moment by the British band Blur. Unfortunately the probe鈥檚 compact size meant its radio antenna was hidden below the fourth panel, so it could not make contact with Earth.
鈥淲e wouldn鈥檛 do it the same again,鈥 said , also of the University of Leicester. A report by the UK government and European Space Agency in 2004 determined that the spacecraft should never have been built.
Colin Pillinger, who led the Beagle 2 team, had long hoped the probe would be found but died last year before the landing site was confirmed. 鈥淗e would have been very very pleased, but he also would have been very frustrated that we got so close,鈥 said Sims. 鈥淚t鈥檚 tinged with sadness that Colin doesn鈥檛 know.鈥
The discovery means the UK can now officially claim to have landed on Mars, joining only the US and USSR. What鈥檚 more, there may be scientific data waiting on board the probe, such as pictures taken by its camera during deployment. 鈥淭hose images would be on the lander, they could potentially be in the memory, we just can鈥檛 download them,鈥 said Sims. 鈥淚t makes it even more frustrating.鈥
So could they ever be retrieved by humans reaching Beagle 2 and finally completing its scientific mission? 鈥淢aybe archaeologists in a thousand years鈥 time,鈥 Bridges told New Scientist. 鈥淲ill they leave it there or bring it back to Earth? I don鈥檛 know.鈥
