Europe Mars Probe Stays Ominously Silent
Posted on: Monday, 26 January 2004, 06:00 CST
As Europe's first Mars probe remains stubbornly silent, British scientists announced a "last resort" plan Monday of switching off the missing Beagle 2's computer system for an overhaul.
Colin Pillinger, lead scientist on the Beagle 2 program, said his team heard nothing when the European Space Agency's orbiter Mars Express passed over its landing site twice on the weekend.
Hopes of finding the British-built lander, which was due to land on the Red Planet on Christmas Day, are fading.
Pillinger said his team would ask NASA to send a command from its Mars Odyssey orbiter on Tuesday to tell Beagle 2 to switch off its own computer and reload its software.
"We are now working on the basis that this is a corrupt system and the only way we might resurrect it is to send such a command and completely reload the software, if it's still alive," Pillinger said at a press conference in London.
"Of course, that is a very dangerous command to send because if the thing is AWOL, or even if it's there, it may never respond to it, so it's pretty much a last resort," he added.
Pillinger said that Mars Express may also attempt to do the same thing, if Odyssey fails, on Feb. 2 or 3.
Beagle 2 has not been heard from since it separated from the mother ship in mid-December, despite contact efforts by Mars Express, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter and British and U.S. radio telescopes.
Pillinger said that his team would press on with the search for the missing probe, despite the bleak outlook.
"It would be incredibly useful to us to know how far in its mission it got because we are ... dedicated to trying to re-fly Beagle 2 in one way, shape for form," he said.
Mars Express has had a more successful mission - scientists at the European Space Agency said last week that it had found the most direct evidence yet of water in the form of ice on Mars, detecting molecules vaporizing from the Red Planet's south pole.
Scientists have long believed the planet's poles contain frozen water, but previous findings - including NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter's evidence of large amounts of ice - were based more on inferences, European scientists said.
NASA ran into its own problems last week with its Mars program when the Spirit rover developed serious problems, cutting off what had been a steady flow of pictures and scientific data.
American scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are hopeful of pinpointing the problem and say Spirit could resume normal operations in two to three weeks. They are also celebrating the arrival of pictures beamed back on the weekend from Spirit's identical twin Opportunity, which was sent to the other side of the Red Planet.
(jw-rb)
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