New Mars mission to find Beagle 2
11 Aug 2005 by Evoluted New Media
Hopes are high that the UK’s lost Mars mission, Beagle 2 can be traced as Nasa launches the biggest space craft ever to be sent to Mars – The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
Hopes are high that the UK’s lost Mars mission, Beagle 2 can be traced as Nasa launches the biggest space craft ever to be sent to Mars – The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
Scientists from the UK have developed an instrument on the Orbiter that will profile the Red planet’s atmosphere. The MRO will also carry high resolution cameras that will provide the most detailed picture yet of Mars.
It is hoped that these cameras will help find Beagle 2. Professor Colin Pillinger, from the Open University, who led the Beagle 2 mission, said: "If we could just see some trace of it on the surface then at least we could see how far it got - the not knowing is the worst bit.
"It will be a very difficult thing to do, but this is our best chance of finding out what happened and we will be watching the progress of the mission with great interest and anticipation."
The prime objective of the mission is to determine the history of water on mars. A suite of instruments will zoom-in to capture extreme close-up images of the Martian surface, analyse minerals, look for subsurface water and monitor the global weather.
Scientists from Oxford, Cardiff and Reading Universities are involved in the Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) instrument. Professor Fred Tayor, of Oxford University and investigator on the MCS told Laboratory News: “MCS uses similar technology to that which is now routinely employed on weather satellites orbiting the Earth. We plan to use the data to understand weather and climate on Mars to find out why the planet changed from what was evidently a warm, wet climate in the past, much more like Earth’s than that which we see today.”
To see the launch click here:
