On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 20:51:28 GMT, "OhBrother" <Nobody@noplace.com> wrote:

[...]

Ed Dames is an idiot.  I don't follow idiots.

You prefer to pioneer new pathways to idiocy.

You give yourself away Jimbo.


How about taking the Marz Express outta here, eh?

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MARS_MISSION?SITE=MIDTF&SECTION=HOME

Space Agency Moves Mars Craft Into Orbit

By GEIR MOULSON
Associated Press Writer 
 
Moulson reports scientists have spent the last several days trying to locate
and contact the Beagle Two probe. (Audio) 
  
BERLIN (AP) -- Europe's Mars Express orbiter blasted into a new path around
the Red Planet on Tuesday, heading toward a new course that allows it to
search for the missing Beagle 2 lander while conducting its own mission of
using radar to probe deep beneath the surface.

Mars Express fired its main engine for more than three minutes to switch
from orbiting over the planet's equator to a route that will take it over
the poles.

"Today was a very critical day," flight director Michael McKay said.

The craft's engine will be fired again Sunday to slow it down and put it
into a lower orbit, positioning it to contact its missing companion, the
Beagle, beginning on Jan. 7. The European mission is searching for evidence
of life on Mars.

Mars Express went into orbit around Mars early on Christmas Day - about the
same time that the British-built Beagle was supposed to land north of the
Martian equator. NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter and British and U.S. radio
telescopes have failed so far to pick up its transmissions. 
  
Still, controllers remain hopeful that Mars Express will find the Beagle's
signal when the craft passes over the landing site at an altitude of 196
miles on Jan. 7.

"The probability of communications (with Mars Express) is 100 times higher
than having Mars Odyssey try," mission control spokesman Bernhard von Weyhe
said.

European Space Agency officials note that the companion craft's radios have
been tested together and shown to link up - unlike those of Beagle and Mars
Odyssey.

"I still have a little bit of hesitation to say we have no signal," McKay
said at the control center in Darmstadt, south of Frankfurt. "I'm sure the
Beagle is down there. I'm sure it's trying to communicate with something."

Controllers have said a problem with the software of Beagle's clock,
confusing the timing of its planned transmissions, could be behind its
silence. They also say the lander could have tumbled down a crater on the
rocky Martian surface.

Mars Express is to use its powerful radar to search over the next two years
for signs that there was once enough water on the planet to sustain life.

The orbiter is equipped with radar designed to search as far as 3 miles
beneath the planet's surface and a high-resolution camera to take images of
the surface. Early in January, controllers plan to start switching on the
craft's scientific instruments.

The 143-pound Beagle is designed to sample soil and rocks with a mechanical
arm. Even if the lander isn't located, the European Space Agency considers
the mission a success because of the performance of the orbiter. "Here we
have Europe, on its first mission to another planet, successfully in orbit
around Mars," McKay said.

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.