Beagle 2, Mars lander
Beagle 2 to Mars: The British journey to the Red Planet!
In late December 2003, a small 65kg lander will separate from the European Space Agency Mars Express spacecraft five days before it is due to enter orbit around the planet.
After a fiery descent through the Martian atmosphere, the protective heat shield will be discarded and a parachute will be deployed to slow its descent to the surface. On the way down a series of airbags will be inflated and the parachute discarded, the latter to avoid it falling on and covering the spacecraft.
The lander will bounce down onto the Martian surface, protected by the "Pathfinder style" airbags, until it comes to a complete stop whereupon the airbags will be detached. The clam shell structure of the lander will then open and the four petal like solar panels will unfurl to feed the lithium batteries powering the craft.
Once safely on the surface, Beagle 2 will announce its arrival on Mars to terrestrial listeners with a burst of specially composed 'Britpop' music from the band Blur and then start its nominal 180 day mission to look for life on the Red Planet. The artistic theme is maintained by the camera colour calibration patterns used on the lander which have been designed by British artist Damien Hirst.
The Beagle 2 craft, named after the ship upon which Charles Darwin made his voyage of scientific exploration, is largely the inspiration and brainchild of one person, Prof. Colin Pillinger of the UK's Open University. Costing around £25 million, the lander is being constructed by a consortium including several companies, various universities and ESA, together with support from the UK government.
Given the severe payload constraints imposed by the Mars Express mission profile, Beagle 2 is the epitome of compact and efficient design with the whole lander weighing in at around 65kg and less than 1 metre in diameter. Despite the mass restriction, Beagle 2 will have the highest ratio of scientific payload to spacecraft mass of any lander yet sent to Mars.
A key element of the lander design is the Beagle 2's PAW or Position Adjustable Workbench, a compact, integrated set of instruments located at the end of a robot arm. These include a pair of stereo imaging cameras, a microscope, a corer/grinder, X-ray and Mossbauer spectrometers and an innovative burrowing and sampling device called a mole. The cameras will provide detailed stereoscopic images of the surrounding landscape as well as nearby rocks whilst the grinder/corer will prepare rock and soil samples for analysis by the two spectrometers once they have been examined via the microscope.
In addition to the study of surface samples, the spring loaded mole will recover a series of soil samples from depths up to 1.5 metres under the Martian surface. These samples are of particular interest as they have been protected from the damaging effects of UV radiation on the surface. These samples will be fed into the Gas Analysis Package (GAP), a sensitive mass spectrometer built within the body of the lander, that will test the samples for the presence of methane, a gas that is a sure indicator of active biological processes, i.e. life.
GAP will also examine the isotopic composition of any carbon detected to see if the distinctive signature of life is also present, no matter how small the sample may be. The lander will also carry a small suite of environmental sensors to study the Martian weather, dust abundances and, importantly, radiation detectors to measure for the first time the amount of UV radiation hitting the Martian surface.
Beagle 2 will land in the Isidis Planitia, a flat lying basin just north of the Martian equator where the terrain is flat with few steep slopes, hopefully reducing the hazards of landing. The Martian spring will just be dawning in Isidis and this, combined with the equatorial position of the landing site will reduce the thermal demands on the lander, with fewer very cold nights and more hours of sunlight to recharge the batteries.
Beagle 2 will not be able to communicate directly with Earth but instead will relay its messages through the Mars Express orbiter and, possibly via NASA's Odyssey orbiter and even Mars Global Surveyor, if it is still operational. Although small and compact compared to previous landers, Beagle 2 may just answer the biggest question of all: Is there life on Mars?
Update: So what happened in the end?
ESA's Mars Express completed its part of the journey and arrived into Mars orbit as planned. However when Beagle separated and after descending to the planet's surface, scientists have unfortunately not been able to establish contact and the lander is lost. Scientists believe they spotted Beagle 2 on the Martian surface and have concluded that it landed incorrectly causing malfunction.
Author: Paul J. Henney