THE story of Beagle 2, the Mars lander launched with great public fanfare, has ended in secrecy and disappointment for both its fans and critics, who will never see the results of the investigation into why it failed.
The committee investigating the loss of the British-built lander published 19 recommendations on Monday about future missions, but refused to release its full report. But even the recommendations imply scathing criticism of more or less every aspect of the project. Future missions, the committee said, should be conceived more carefully, designed more thoughtfully and tested more thoroughly. What鈥檚 more, they should have stronger management, more robust funding and be given more time. In other words: don鈥檛 build them like Beagle 2.
David Southwood, the European Space Agency鈥檚 director of science, says blame cannot be attached to any individual and described the loss of the spacecraft as an institutional failure. 鈥淚 always felt it was going to be a close-run thing,鈥� he says.
Advertisement
Colin Pillinger, a planetary scientist at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, and the driving force behind the Beagle 2 project, said his team had given Beagle their best shot with the constraints put upon them, and urged ESA to send a replacement for Beagle 2 to Mars as soon as possible. Beagle 3, anyone?