25 December 2003
Scientists have failed to receive a call sign message from Beagle 2 telling them it has landed safely on Mars, the mission's chief scientist Professor Colin Pillinger said today.
The fate of Beagle 2 is now uncertain and mission controllers must wait until 10pm for their next chance to check if the British probe has survived.
Speaking at the Open University's offices in Camden, north London, Prof Pillinger told waiting reporters: "I'm afraid it's a bit disappointing but it's not the end of the world. Please don't go away from here believing we've lost the spacecraft."
The tiny disc-shaped craft should have landed at 2.54am UK time in a lowland basin called Isidis Planitia.
Scientists were hoping to receive Beagle 2's call-sign - a nine-note "tune" specially composed by members of the pop group Blur - shortly after 6am.
But the signal, which should have been relayed to earth by the orbiting Nasa spacecraft Mars Odyssey, never arrived.
Another opportunity to pick up the call-sign from Odyssey will not arise until tomorrow morning.
But it may still be possible to make contact with Beagle 2 tonight using the powerful radio telescope at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire.
From 10pm, after the Martian sunrise, the giant dish will be turned towards the planet in the hope of picking up a faint carrier signal direct from Beagle 2's own transmitter.
Tension mounted at the Open University centre in Camden as Prof Pillinger waited on an open phone line to Odyssey's controllers at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
In front of him was a bank of 10 television cameras. At 6.10am he announced: "Unfortunately we don't have any Beagle telemetry in the signal.
"I'm afraid it's a bit disappointing but it's not the end of the world. Please don't go away from here believing we've lost the spacecraft.
"We never tested the Odyssey link and we have at least 14 Odyssey contacts programmed in our computer."
He said it was possible Beagle 2's antenna was pointing in the wrong direction, or there may have been a problem synchronising the craft with Odyssey.
"We've just gone into extra time," he added. "There's a long way to go."
Blur bass player Alex James, who had stayed up with the scientists, remained upbeat.
He said: "It would have been nice if we had heard it had landed but it's far away and very alone. Maybe they're picking the music up on Pluto.
"In a way it's already been a massive success just for free enterprise and British balls and brilliance.
"This is pure theatre. We've got the world's media here. Now it gets better, we get the big toys out - Jodrell Bank."
Open University scientist Dr Ian Wright, responsible for Beagle's Gas Analysis Package, said: "It's disappointing in the sense that you've got more waiting to do. But it's no more disappointing than someone expecting the birth of a child, and its due day has passed and they're still waiting. "There's no reason to give up yet."
Another Open University scientist, geologist Dr Dave Rothery, who helped in the selection of the landing site, said: "Naturally I am disappointed, but it's early days. It was always on the cards that this might happen.
"You can't afford to be disappointed in this business.
"There's such a long chain of events and establishing communications is just one of them. Odyssey was not designed and built to be the transmitter for Beagle 2."
He said the landing site was carefully chosen to minimise natural hazards.
Isibis Planitia is a low-lying plain strewn with small rocks, mostly no bigger than a house brick.
One possibility was that Beagle 2 had landed tilted on its side on the edge of a crater.
"There are small craters in that area, you can never avoid them completely," said Dr Rothery.
"If Beagle came to rest at a tilt, its antenna might not have been in the right position to pick up Mars Odyssey. But it might be OK with a later orbit."
TV astonomer Heather Couper was less optimistic.
She said: "I'm very disappointed about it, to be honest. We have to face the fact that literally half the probes that we have sent to land on Mars have failed.
"It was a very risky mission. It was a miniaturised mission, it was almost untried technology.
"There are three scenarios. One is, it could have landed in a very rocky area, and the antenna could be pointing in the wrong direction.
"Another theory I've heard of is it could have been blown off course by winds, because Mars at the moment has some fairly active dust storms.
"Finally, there's the possibility that it basically could have crashed.
"My gut feeling is not good, but even if it has failed, it has stimulated an incredible interest in space, science and astronomy in the UK. People have taken Beagle to their hearts."
Beagle 2 is on a 180-day mission to test soil, rock and air samples for signs of past or present life on Earth's nearest planetary neighbour.
Everything appeared to be going well on Friday when the probe separated from its "mothership", the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft.
While Mars Express prepared to go into orbit to survey the planet, Beagle 2 hurtled into the atmosphere at 12,500mph.
The perilous descent involved ejecting the heatshield, deploying a pilot and main parachute, and inflating three gas bags designed to surround the probe and break its fall.
Bouncing like a beachball, Beagle 2 should have hit the ground at 36mph before cutting free from the gas bags.
Then the lander was designed to open up like a pocket watch to expose its solar panels and instruments.
The craft is no bigger than a dustbin lid and weighs less than 155lb, but is packed with state-of-the-art technology.
It has an extendable arm for gathering samples, and an on-board laboratory that can spot the chemical signatures of life.
The £140 million mission began in June when a Russian rocket launched Mars Express into space from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.
In October the spacecraft's navigation system was temporarily blinded by radiation from a powerful solar flare, but it survived.
A Japanese mission to Mars, Nozomi, had to be abandoned after the probe developed electrical problems, caused by the same solar storm.
Controllers steered the craft away from the planet to prevent it crashing on to the surface.
Beagle 2 arrived ahead of two golf-cart-sized Nasa rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, due to reach Mars on 4 and 24 January.
Both will spend three months carrying out geological surveys, but neither is equipped to search for direct signs of life.
