THE European Space Agency knew the Beagle 2 project was in trouble in May 2001, almost two years before the lander began its journey to Mars.
Beagle 2 was dreamed up by Colin Pillinger, a planetary scientist at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, and the project鈥檚 public face. He also arranged for it to hitch a ride on ESA鈥檚 Mars Express orbiter. While the scientific goals of the mission 鈥� to look for signs of life on Mars 鈥� had been widely praised, the way the project was managed has been hugely controversial. None of Beagle 2鈥檚 backers, an unusual consortium of universities and companies held together by gentleman鈥檚 agreements, knew what the others were doing, and by mid-2001 the project was months behind schedule and wildly over budget.
Last month, ESA鈥檚 director of science programmes, David Southwood, told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee that within 15 days of joining the project in May 2001 he decided it was not going to work. 鈥淚 came in and found it, frankly, a mess,鈥� he says. The project came within a whisker of being cancelled. 鈥淚 would not have minded betting in June or July of that year that Beagle would be abandoned,鈥� Southwood told the committee.
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Southwood told New 杏吧原创 that he had been unhappy with the project鈥檚 progress and had demanded major changes in the way it was managed. 鈥淚 effectively moved the technical management out of Colin Pillinger鈥檚 hands,鈥� he says. Pillinger himself refutes suggestions that he was displaced. 鈥淚 was consortium leader and lead scientist,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 was never fiddling with screws and tightening bolts.鈥�
Southwood鈥檚 reorganisation, completed in September 2001, put the space and satellite company EADS Astrium in charge of the project. He believes that without this new management structure, Beagle would never have flown. 鈥淚 saved Beagle at that point and I鈥檓 proud of that,鈥� he says. But his fears for the project鈥檚 ultimate success proved justified. After separating from Mars Express on 19 December 2003, the lander was never heard from again.