Still No Answers From Mars on Beagle 2
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The British team that built the space probe for Europe&#39;s doomed mission to Mars conceded Tuesday that any future ventures to the Red Planet should have better
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The UK-led Beagle 2 team which tried to put a lander on the surface of Mars last year has published the findings of its own inquiry into what went wrong.
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A report into the loss of British Mars probe Beagle 2 blames the UK government's failure to commit funds early.
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And this is Faith Lapidus with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we have a report about NASAâs two exploration vehicles on the surface of Mars.
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NASA is paying for the Mars Rovers to keep working. The twin rovers &quot;Spirit&quot; and &quot;Opportunity&quot; landed on the surface of Mars last January.
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In my last blog post, I mentioned the work on rubinius (then at a 0.7 release and now at 0.8) and JRuby.  I also promised I&#8217;d follow up on them.  Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s been going on so far.
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The team behind the lost Beagle 2 lander has outlined plans for a third generation craft, Beagle 2: Evolution, that could yet go to Mars.
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Mars, the red planet, may not after all be the dead planet. New research yesterday by European scientists suggests that volcanoes on Mars last erupted only 2 million years ago and could erupt again.
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When the Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit reached their distant destination in early 2004, NASA scientists hoped the vehicles would probe the planet's frigid landscape for 90 days before they pooped out or were undone by the harsh Martian environment.
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Scientists behind the Beagle 2 mission to Mars unveiled designs yesterday for a successor to the British spacecraft. Plans for the so-called Beagle 3 came to light as scientists outlined
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BEIJING, Dec. 23 -- Photographs taken from an European Mars Express Orbiter hint that volcanic activities may still exist on the mysterious red planet.
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Any one of a number of technical malfunctions might have caused the loss of Beagle 2, the ill-fated British space probe that vanished while attempting to land on Mars, an investigation found.
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Cape Canaveral - Nearly two years after Columbia shattered in the sky, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration still has no way of repairing the kind of holes that could doom other shuttles.
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SPACE.com / CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA shuttle managers are deciding  whether simple camera views, a third heat shield survey or possibly even a  spacewalk may be required to address a mystery object near the space shuttle  Atlantis that has already delayed the spacecraft's landing.    'We have ruled out nothing and we'll  take the time that it needs to take,' NASA's shuttle program manager Wayne Hale told reporters  today. 'We'll come back and maybe have a little better gelled plan later this  afternoon. ...
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Scientists have failed to make contact with the British-built Mars probe, Beagle 2, which should have landed on the planet early today.
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Extreme PlanetThough both rovers are exploring Mars well beyond their initial 90-day missions, electrical connections and moving parts are showing signs of temperature-related fatigue.&quot;Every day we have a huge thermal cycle,&quot; notes Jake Matijevic, chief of the rover engineering team. &quot;That causes the solder in electrical connections to expand and contract until it breaks.&quot;Seasonal ChangeDuring their exploration of Mars, the rovers have recorded temperatures ranging from midday highs of about 35 degrees C. (95 degrees F.) in spring and summer to nighttime lows of about minus 110 degrees C. (minus 166 degrees F.) in winter. Spirit has experienced greater swings in temperature because its location is farther from the martian equator, which puts it seasonally closer to or farther from the Sun than Opportunity.Three Years of DataRover engineer Dan Porter has been tracking temperatures recorded by 50 or so sensors on each of the rovers since shortly after they landed on Mars in January 2004. The results are not only of interest to scientists, they're a favorite of human audiences as well.&quot;People ask about this all the time,&quot; says New Mexico geologist Larry Crumpler, a member of the Mars rover science team who created the charts showing monthly average temperatures superimposed on panoramic-camera images from each of the rovers. &quot;These plots of daily temperature are destined to become an important part of all my public outreach talks.&quot;Cold vs. ColderJust as on Earth, temperatures on Mars are not uniform everywhere. Objects exposed to direct sunlight are apt to be warmer than those in the shade. Some objects retain heat better than others. A source of relative warmth on Mars is rocky terrain, because it retains heat better than sandy terrain.A solar panel is sort of like a &quot;warm wall in mid-winter,&quot; says Crumpler. Components beneath the solar panels, such as the hazard avoidance cameras, are closer in temperature to the martian air. Unlike Earth, Mars does not have a thick, atmospheric blanket to seal in warmth by night or minimize the Sun's heat by day.Wear and TearEngineers have traced stalls in a shoulder joint on Opportunity's robotic arm to a broken electrical wire. The shoulder motor has experienced greater temperature swings than other parts because of its location beside a heater that has been stuck in the &quot;on&quot; position since shortly after landing.Notes Matijevic, &quot;Our theory is that one of the wires in the electrical coil broke free and disabled the motor.&quot;Mechanical ProblemsExtremely cold temperatures have also caused mechanical problems. Recently, Opportunity's right front wheel began drawing excess electrical current, reminiscent of Spirit's right front wheel in 2004. The demand for more electrical current suggests that the wheel motor is working harder than usual. Engineers suspect that, like motor oil that can't handle freezing temperatures on Earth, gelid lubricant failed to flow properly and caused Spirit's right front wheel to fail.Adjusting ExpectationsRover drivers have compensated for Spirit's stuck wheel by driving on the other five wheels. They have compensated for Opportunity's stalled shoulder joint by unstowing it before going to sleep at night. This way, if the motor fails during the night, when temperatures are at their lowest, they would still have limited use of the arm by operating the remaining working joints. Each rover has lost a few temperature sensors as well, while dozens more continue operating.Time Will Tell
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A detailed image of the planned landing zone of the UK-led Beagle Mars probe finds no sign of any wreckage.