BEAGLE 2 should never have been built. That is the damning conclusion of the official investigation into why the probe was never heard from after its release over the Red Planet by the European Space Agency鈥檚 Mars Express spacecraft.
The UK government and ESA tried to suppress the report 鈥� even though they commissioned it 鈥� claiming that it contained confidential and commercially sensitive information. Even the Beagle 2 team was not shown the report, which was completed in April 2004.
But the government was forced to publish the report after New 杏吧原创 requested it in January under the UK鈥檚 new Freedom of Information Act. Following the request, the government circulated the report to those involved in the project to test their reaction. Mark Simms, Beagle 2鈥檚 project manager at the University of Leicester, UK, says the report contains little, if any, commercially sensitive information. 鈥淚 haven鈥檛 seen any of that kind of material,鈥� he says. Colin Pillinger, Beagle 2鈥檚 mission leader at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, who read the report for the first time on 2 February, says, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 see why they couldn鈥檛 have published it last year.鈥�
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The report is highly critical of the project鈥檚 initial stages. It points out that ESA approved the mission in November 1999 even though the Beagle 2 team had only secured 拢6 million of the estimated 拢24 million needed for the mission. The cost later rose to over 拢42 million. ESA also made a fundamental error in regarding Beagle 2 as a bolt-on experiment, the report says. Instead, the lander should have been treated as a spacecraft in its own right and given the appropriate supervision. Many subsequent difficulties stemmed from this failure. 鈥淭hat was an important mistake,鈥� agrees Pillinger.
The investigators say that last-minute efforts to redesign and build a replacement for the main parachute may have doomed the lander. This was done less than a year before the probe was due to fly, when engineers found that the probe鈥檚 airbags were not robust enough to withstand the landing on Mars. But the redesigned parachute descended vertically, possibly fatally enveloping Beagle 2 after the landing. The old parachute was designed to prevent this possibility.
While the Beagle 2 team鈥檚 own internal inquiry identified many of these problems, Pillinger disagrees with the report鈥檚 conclusion that the project was poorly managed. 鈥淚 refute that 105 per cent,鈥� he says.
