A camera operated by the University of Arizona spotted a Mars lander lost over a decade ago on the red planet. Now that landing has been confirmed, can anything be salvaged of the failed mission?
In 2003, the UK-led Beagle 2 Lander landed on Mars, but the signal back to Earth never happened and the Lander was lost, until recently.
Pictures from UA’s HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found clues to the landers location, but it was not easy. The orbiter travels nearly 12,000 miles per hour, making 13 orbits a day. While this might make for a blurry picture, HiRise project leader Alfred McEwen said multiple high-resolution images let the way.
“The one bright spot that we thought was Beagle actually seemed to move between images, so hmm, what does that mean?" McEwan said. "And we think that it’s because of glint reflections off of different solar panels from different images.”
Beagle 2 is about the size of kitchen table, made of solar panels and a robotic arm with instruments mostly for soil testing. With little hope for the lander, McEwen said it may still serve a purpose.
“The engineers are always happy to get some information about what worked and what didn’t,” McEwan said.
That will have to wait for a future mission.
