The Beagle is landing…
December 24th, 2003At about 0254 GMT tomorrow, Beagle 2 will land on Mars. Beagle 2 is one of the greatest British scientific achievements of recent times, and is a testament to how hard work and ingenuity can overcome the limits of a small budget. Beagle 2 has spent the past six months hurtling towards Mars (while similar projects have failed to make it), covering 250 million miles, but still has to overcome the most arduous part of the trip - the landing. If we’re lucky (and that’s a big ‘if’ - Mars is a notoriously unlucky planet), and the landing is successful we will hear Beagle 2’s call sign (composed by Blur) at about 0630 GMT, which would be a jolly nice Christmas present. In the meantime, why not download the ringtone while you’re waiting?
Update (25/12 09:14): Bugger. No confirmation signal yet. We’ll have to wait till 10pm tonight to see if it has been successful - but it doesn’t look promising. Keep your fingers crossed…
Further Update (26/12 11:59): News is pretty gloomy - no signal yet received. Beagle 2 has probably crashed. :-( Still, never mind…