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| | | | | | | | | Artist's impression of Beagle 2 on Martian surface | |
Merry Christmas from Mars: Europe scores dual success at the Red Planet
19 December 2003
ESA PR 84-2003. This morning, after a journey lasting 205 days and covering 400 million km, the European Mars Express spacecraft fired its main engine at 03:47 CET for a 31-minute (precise time provided only on 25.12.!) burn in order to enter an orbit around the Red Planet. This firing gave the Mars Express a XXX km/h (provided on 25.12. dec.!) boost so that it could match the higher speed of the planet as it orbits around the Sun and is captured into orbit by its gravity field, quite like climbing onto a spinning merry-go-round. This orbit insertion manoeuvre was a complete success.
At the same time, the Beagle 2 lander touched down safely on the surface of the Red Planet. The tiny probe was released from the mothercraft six days ago (19 December) on a collision course towards the planet. Protected by a thermal shield, it entered the atmosphere at high velocity. Once its speed had fallen to 1600 km/h, it deployed a series of parachutes for final deceleration. At an altitude of 200 m, large airbags were inflated to smooth the touchdown on the surface. Once on the ground, Beagle 2 opened its casing, unfolded its solar arrays and beamed its life signal, which was picked up by NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter and relayed to NASA's Deep Space Network. The signal, actually a 9-note musical tune composed by British pop group Blur, was received this morning at ??? CET (provided on 25.12. at around 8 a.m.!). It was the first contact with Beagle 2 since its separation.
This is something for Europe to feel proud of on its first attempt to simultaneously deliver a lander onto a planet and place a space probe in an orbit around the same planet.
| | Mars Express orbiter's main engine is firing for Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI). | |
In the course of the coming week, the orbit of Mars Express will be gradually adjusted in order to prepare for its scientific mission. At this time, Mars Express is several thousand kilometres away from Mars, in a very elongated orbit in the equatorial plane. On 30 December, ESA's Mission Control Team will begin a sequence of manoeuvres, sending commands to fire the spacecraft's engines and placing Mars Express in a new orbit which takes it over the poles in a much less elongated orbit (about 300 x 10000 km and 86° inclination). From there, ESA's spacecraft will perform detailed studies of the planet's surface, subsurface structures and atmosphere. Commissioning of some of the onboard scientific instruments will begin towards mid-January 2004 and the first scientific results are expected in the second half of that month.
Beagle 2 is now a small autonomous station on the planet, in the equatorial region of Isidis Planitia. Its purpose is to search for evidence of present or past life using instruments that analyse the chemical composition of nearby rocks, soil and atmosphere. Beagle 2 will look for chemical "fossils" and markers of Martian life, if it has ever existed. The full commissioning and calibration of the instruments will begin on 29 December.
“This is a tremendous success for Europe and for the international science community, I could not dream of a better Christmas gift for us all!” said David Southwood, Director of ESA’s Science Programme. “With Mars Express, we now have a very powerful observatory in orbit around Mars and we look forward to receiving its first results. Its instruments will be able to probe the planet from its upper atmosphere down to a few kilometres below its surface, where we hope to find water. We also have the greatest expectations of Beagle 2, which is only the fourth lander successfully deployed on Mars. Hopefully, both Mars Express and Beagle 2 will give us a better understanding of our neighbour planet, of its past and its present, answering many questions for the science community and probably raising an even greater number of fascinating new ones. We look forward to the American probes arriving at Mars also in the coming days and to working further together with in this truly international exploration of Mars".
For further information, please contact :
ESA Media Relations Service
Tel: +33(0)1.53.69.7155
Fax: +33(0)1.53.69.7690
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| | Looking at Mars  Related links Mars Express mission factsBeagle 2 lander homepageBeagle is GO for separationRelated articles Christmas on Mars: be there with ESAMars is just around the cornerPlanet Mars from 5.5 million kilometres'Europe lands on Mars' - Media event at ESA/ESOCCrucial moments on the way to MarsAre you ready for Mars?
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