The Beagle had landed

摘要

The story so far... the ill-fated Beagle2 Mars probe that dramatically disappeared when it dropped onto the planet's surface on Christmas Day 2003 turned out to have landed successfully. On landing, the probe was supposed to open like a clamshell and deploy solar panels and instruments that would look for signs of life on the red planet, but nothing more was heard from Beagle 2 after it was ejected from its mothership and contact ceased -until early in 2015. Plenty of speculation took place over the years as to the demise of the mission, from it missing the planet completely, burning up on entry, hitting poor weather or striking the ground far too hard, due to using the wrong atmospheric model. However, we now know that it only missed the nominal target by two miles and that it had partially opened most of its solar array panels. Unfortunately, not activating the last panel in the clam shell resulted in the main antenna not being exposed and thus no communication could take place. In effect, it was one very dormant probe, sitting there for more than 10 years awaiting the command to start working.