Flamsteed AS Prof Colin Pillinger Beagle 2 and beyond

The initial Beagle 2 design problem was to shrink a room-full of equipment down to suitcase size weighing no more than 5.5 kg. No mean feat and they almost achieved it. Beagle 2 was finally the size of a car wheel weighing 30 kg. It contained among other things a mass spectrometer, an optical microscope, binocular ‘eyes’ to search out suitable samples, a rock sampling drill and a telescopic ‘mole’ with which to burrow up to 1.5 metres under adjacent rocks in search of ‘protected’ samples. Great care and clinical cleanliness was essential during manufacture to avoid any possibility of cross contamination by earthly material affecting the module.

Beagle 2 was launched piggy-back on ESA’s Mars Express probe on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on June 2, 2003. One of Colin’s mock regrets was his failure to ensure that the Lander was clearly marked ‘Made in Britain’ - to annoy the French! He showed us a video of the mission as it was intended to operate -- the complexity and ingenuity of the miniaturised research equipment on board the lander became very apparent.

Flamsteed Astronomy Society

Beagle 2 and beyond — Professor Colin Pillinger

April 21, 2008

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Prof Colin Pillinger

(Pic: Mike Dryland)

On Christmas Day 2003 NASA’s Odyssey space craft listened in vain for the Beagle’s bleeped signals; Jodrell Bank listened and everyone with the technical capability listened - but no signal ever came back. In the absence of any genuine technical reasons, ESA, the European Space Agency, eventually blamed the Beagle 2 management team for the project’s failure. Furiously loyal to his overworked and under funded colleagues, Colin would have none of that, although no cause for the mission’s problem has ever been identified. Beagle 2 is not alone -- it is interesting to note that of 44 Mars missions of all kinds, only 18 (40%) have succeeded in achieving their aims and objectives.

Colin’s fascinating talk, punctuated by humorous anecdotes and space-related cartoons, many of which appear in his book, was peppered with optimism and a very real sense of solid achievement. Despite the final, bitterly disappointing, outcome of Beagle 2, the primary achievement was the creation, against the severest of odds, of a vehicle that could have done the job and has bequeathed a rich variety of scientific spin-offs in the form of nano-mass spectrometers and gas analysis technology. This part of the development was funded by the Wellcome Foundation, and is benefiting mankind now for the rapid diagnosis of TB.

Beagle 2 Lander showing the solar panels and instrument arm being deployed

Colin now looks forward with relish to the ESA Rosetta mission rendezvous with an unpronounceable comet in 2014 (he has been associated with Rosetta since 1985!) and also to NASA’s embryonic Ares 1 (Astronauts) and Ares V (cargo module) rockets planned to return men to the Moon. NASA is very interested in Beagle 2 technology to help with the detection of water in the lunar Polar Regions. In addition, we await ESA’s Aurora ExoMars mission, originally scheduled for 2009, but progressively shunted backwards in sixteen month increments (aligning with viable Martian orbit injection periods), now to 2115 and beyond. With a budget of 1.5 billion Euros, it is poised to take up the challenge Colin’s Beagle 2 sadly failed to achieve. But when??

A very appreciative audience effusively thanked Professor Colin Pillinger (and bought signed copies of his excellent book in quite gratifying numbers I believe) for an extremely interesting and very funny talk. We went away, having shared numerous diverse aspects of one very determined man’s courageous struggle to overcome many varieties of adversity and bureaucratic frustrations.

An eager Flamsteed audience queue up for a signed copy of Colin’s book

(Pic: Mike Dryland)