All information is from the OFFICIAL ESA website. No FFU used here. Only metric.

http://www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/index.html

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=34396

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=9

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=31388


UNCH DATE: 02-Jun-2003 17:45 UT
MISSION END: 30-Nov-2005 (Nominal Mission)
LAUNCH VEHICLE: Soyuz-Fregat
LAUNCH MASS: 1223 kg
MISSION PHASE: Currently in Interplanetary Cruise

ORBIT:

Orbital Inclination: 86.3o
Pericentre: 258 km
Apocentre: 11 560 km
Period: 7.5 h

Spacecraft
Mass & Power Budget

Spacecraft Item
Current Mass

Spacecraft Bus
439 kg

Lander
71 kg

Payload
116 kg

Propellant
427 kg

Launch Mass
1223 kg

Typical Mean Power Demand
Observation
Manoeuvre
Communication

Spacecraft
270 W
310 W
445 W

Payload
140 W
50 W
55 W

Total
410 W
360 W
500 W





Dimensions

Spacecraft bus dimensions
1.5x1.8x1.4 m

Thrust of main spacecraft engine
400 N

Attitude thrusters
8 at 10 N each

Propellant
267 litres

Pointing performance
0.15o




Power Source


Solar array area
11.42 m2

Lithium batteries
3 at 22.5 Ah each



Thermal Specification
Spacecraft bus
+10-20oC

PFS, Omega
-180oC

Thermal blanket
Gold-plated AISn alloy





Instruments
High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) - High resolution surface imaging
Energetic Neutron Atoms Analyser (ASPERA) - How the solar wind erodes the Martian atmosphere
Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) - Study of the atmospheric composition and circulation
Visible and Infrared Mineralogical Mapping Spectrometer (OMEGA) - Determination of the surface composition and evolution processes
Sub-Surface Sounding Radar Altimeter (MARSIS) - Search for water in the subsurface
The Radio Science Experiment (MaRS) - Sounding of the internal structure, atmosphere and environment
Ultraviolet and Infrared Mars Atmospheric Spectrometer (SPICAM) - Determination of the composition of the atmosphere of Mars
Lander (Beagle 2) - Geochemistry and exobiology

Orbit
Mars Express was launched from the Fregat upper stage towards Mars with an absolute velocity of 116 800 kmh-1 and a velocity relative to the Earth of 10 800 kmh-1. Five days before orbit insertion around Mars the lander, Beagle 2, will be released to begin its descent. The orbiter stage will then fire its main engine and enter into a capture orbit. Once in orbit around Mars further corrections will be made to place the orbiter into its operational orbit:
Orbital Inclination - 86.3o
Apocentre - 11 560 km
Pericentre - 258 km
Period - 7.5 h
Observational Phase at Pericentre - about 1 hour
Communications Phase - 6.5-7.0 hours minimum
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=31022

Any news yet????


Perhaps someone accidentally said "yard" !

We're now waiting for Mars Express to communicate with Beagle.

Let me guess!

Mars Express is European and Beagle is British. Is this correct? Mars express would definitely be 100 % metric and we know it is functioning.

Beagle being British may have been built with a mixture of component comprising a mixture of units and standards. Thus doomed to failure from the get-go.

The Americans proved with their 100 M€ fiasco a few years back that combining FFU with metric is a sure fired way to create a disaster. If the British followed the US example, we can all be certain that the Beagle is dead.

....brimming with festive spirit I see!!!!

The latest on Beagle 2 is that a crater has been discovered close to the landing site. It may be that Beagle has fallen into it.

If anyone watched the excellent Royal Institute lecture by Dr Monica Grady today they will have heard what the Mars Express (mothership to Beagle 2) Flight Director had to say.

He explained that there are further opportunities to contact Beagle with a better chance of success. The mothership has yet to enter its final orbit closer to the surface than previously and to become more pro-active in establising contact with the surface vehicle.

Mars Express will enter the final trajectry on the 4th January 204 but the best opportunity will occur on the 7th January when it will be closest to the surface over the landing site.

So please folks don't write it off yet and lets all hope for success. All the people on that project deserve it.

I want to see it succeed.

Interesting that you are not with the nut-bags here who either want it to fail because someone might have said "inch" or, need it to succeed just so it means that "metric is better than imperial" for whatever perverse reason that might be.

How refreshing.

Maybe Euric was a bit hasty in writing Beagle 2 off for measurement reasons. I am sure what he actually meant was that your chances of failure increase drastically if you work with mixed units, and he is of course right. Everbody hopes the experiment won't be a failure, metric, or inch!

Actually I hope they do hear something from Beagle.

If the day ever comes that men are sent to Mars, they should be European. This way they can declare Mars to be a metric planet and the euro to be the official currency of Mars.

<<<If the day ever comes that men are sent to Mars, they should be European. This way they can declare Mars to be a metric planet and the euro to be the official currency of Mars>>>

You really are quite mad aren't you?

LOL

Re: Europe go Mars the right way -- with 100 % metric December 30 2003, 3:34 AM

<<<If the day ever comes that men are sent to Mars, they should be European. This way they can declare Mars to be a metric planet and the euro to be the official currency of Mars>>>

steveH.
You really are quite mad aren't you?

LOL

What's so different to Yanks ramming their flag into lunar soil? Why not the UN flag?

It's not suprising Beagle 2 was a failure.

Beagle 1 had Charles Darwin aboard, that well-known racist* who spent much of his life inventing a theory for the origin of life - evolution - that fails every known scentific test.

[* Darwin's racist views on the Tierra del Fuegans and Irish, for starters, are so extreme and unprintable that BWMA would risk prosecution for 'incitement to racial hatred' if I reprinted them here].

As I understand it, Beagle 2 was to search for more clues about the origin of life on Mars. It was a waste of money if that was the main purpose and an unfortunate choice of name. All the evidence we need about life on Earth, and its origin, is available here for us on planet Earth.


P.S. Darwin measured the beaks of Galapagos finches' beaks in inches

I'm intrigued.

<<
As I understand it, Beagle 2 was to search for more clues about the origin of life on Mars. It was a waste of money if that was the main purpose and an unfortunate choice of name. All the evidence we need about life on Earth, and its origin, is available here for us on planet Earth.
>>

No, the purpose is to discover whether life has ever existed or still exists on Mars.

Tony Bennett wrote

<<
Darwin measured the beaks of Galapagos finches' beaks in inches
>>

This is hardly surprising. In 1831 (when Darwin visited the Galapogos) the only countries that used the metric system (or derivatives of it) were France and the Netherlands. It is therefore unlikely that rulers with metric divisions were readily available in the United Kingdom.

To put things into context, the first time that Britain seriously looked at using the metric system was in the 1860's, some 30 years later.

It's not suprising Beagle 2 was a failure.

Beagle 1 had Charles Darwin aboard, that well-known racist* who spent much of his life inventing a theory for the origin of life - evolution - that fails every known scentific test.


Reply: And you would come to this conclusion based on what research that you have done? What "scientific tests" have been conducted to "prove" evolution has failed?

Are you also a member of the flat earth society?

<<<<Are you also a member of the flat earth society? >>>>

... Heck - I can see where this is heading!

Euric:
The Americans proved with their 100 M€ fiasco a few years back that combining FFU with metric is a sure fired way to create a disaster. If the British followed the US example, we can all be certain that the Beagle is dead.

@Euric
You're right, Euric. Those stupid caltech/nasa/jpl people don't set a very good example for the esa. Space exploration is one big US/EU competition and zero sum game just like int'l trade, right? I'm just perplexed and frustrated that nasa Spirit seemed to have made it despite people in the mission control room sometimes having the audacity to quote speeds and distances in miles, though mostly using metric. It must be a conspiracy.

You are a one trick pony and a total and complete LOSER, my friend

I am impressed by the accuracy of that post.

Nice!

re: "And you would come to this conclusion based on what research that you have done? What 'scientific tests' have been conducted to 'prove' evolution has failed? Are you also a member of the flat earth society?"

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REPLY:

I am not a member of the flat earth society because there is ample evidence amounting to proof that the earth is round.

I was once a believer in evolution. After all, it was essentially what I was taught - at school and later at University.

But the billions of fossils left in the sedimentary rocks of the earth don't tell a story of evolution. Not one case of a species changing into another has yet been documented from the fossil record.

On the contrary, a fantatsic array of plants, insects, fish, birds, mammals and other creatures seemingly 'drops' into the fossil record fully formed and functional.

That is powerful evidence. I believe that it points in the direction of a world-wide, devastating Flood, as described in the Book of Genesis.

Another vital line of evidence is in recent DNA discoveries. No mechanism has yet been demonstrated for how a simple one-celled creature (said to be the first form of life) could then add on information to arrive at the fantastically complex DNA structures of almost all living things (AND some even more remarkable creatures that turn up in the fossil record).

Some claim that genetic mutations are the mechanism. But this isn't true; can't be true.

Every mutation either subtracts or corrupts from the DNA inherited from its 'parents'. There is no recorded instance of a mutation causing an improvement which lasts. An example of a corruption giving an apparent improvement is the rare cases of people born with 'six fingers'. I think I'm right in saying that Queen Elizabeth I was such a case. But this is a corruption of the basic design of four fingers and a thumb and does not survive.

Incidentally, no-one has yet explained how non-life became life. Most evolutionary textbooks, which now place the 'Big Bang' at anywhere between 12 and 20 billion years ago, claim that non-life became life about 5 billion years ago. Books often show a bolt of lightning striking into a primeval ocean. But that's not science nor is it scientific proof. There is no convincing scientific explanation as to the moment when life first originated.

Reverting to Darwin, it's interesting to see how his theories of evolution have been misused. Notably Hitler based his notorious book 'Mein Kampf' (= 'My Struggle' or sometimes 'My Fight') on the supposed 'struggle for existence'. Darwin supplied the raw material for his repulsive racial supremacist theories, founded on 'natural selection' and the 'struggle for existence'.

Incidentally, variation within a species is not evidence for evolution. Thus the huge variety of dogs - from chihuahuas to Great St. Bernards, for example - does not demonstrate evolution, but merely shows just how much capacity for variation was built into the original pair of dogs.

The same could be said of the variety of humans descended from an original first pair - say Adam and Eve.

A good analogy might be to think of a pack of cards. The mechanism exists for that pack to be indefinitely shuffled to produce vast numbers of 'varieties' within that pack of cards. But there is no known mechanism for extra cards to be added to that pack to create different or new packs of cards.

Still, this board is not the place to debate these theories.

If you have a genuinely open mind on the subject of origins, I would recommend that you visit:

www.AnswersinGenesis.com

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Incidentally, one of the reasons for my opposition to the compulsory imposition of the metric system is its tendency to disconnect us from our origins and history. The metric syetm was funded by the murderous Communist ('Communard') revolutionaries who took hold of France in 1789, intent on turning the old order upside down. Not that everything in the garden was rosy before 1789, far from it.

I would argue that a society which becomes increasingly disconnected from its origins, traditions and history (as I claim is happening to British people today) also becomes adrift, a state into which I believe we are now entering. A people which is adrift, i.e. not sure where it has come from nor where it is going, is potentially ready for control by the wrong sort of people. Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was a classic example

TB:says
I would argue that a society which becomes increasingly disconnected from its origins, traditions and history (as I claim is happening to British people today) also becomes adrift, a state into which I believe we are now entering. A people which is adrift, i.e. not sure where it has come from nor where it is going, is potentially ready for control by the wrong sort of people. Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was a classic example

metre:
Oh,I wish the planet I am living on would be as simple as yours.

Great critique eric.

Most convincing and thought provoking.

<<
But the billions of fossils left in the sedimentary rocks of the earth don't tell a story of evolution. Not one case of a species changing into another has yet been documented from the fossil record.
>>

Not sure about that 'billions', but the fossil record is a very fragmented account of natural history. Evolutionary changes occur naturally over thousands of generations. Subtle changes between one stage and another are not likey to appear so neat and gradual like a movie.

<<
On the contrary, a fantatsic array of plants, insects, fish, birds, mammals and other creatures seemingly 'drops' into the fossil record fully formed and functional.
>>

Yes, all creatures at every stage are in themselves fully formed and functional and adapted to the environment that exists at the time. The theory of evolution doesn't claim that all intermediate versions of a chain are happless or ill-formed.

<<
That is powerful evidence. I believe that it points in the direction of a world-wide, devastating Flood, as described in the Book of Genesis.

Another vital line of evidence is in recent DNA discoveries. No mechanism has yet been demonstrated for how a simple one-celled creature (said to be the first form of life) could then add on information to arrive at the fantastically complex DNA structures of almost all living things (AND some even more remarkable creatures that turn up in the fossil record).
>>

The very fact if DNA shows the common denominator between all complex life forms. Which strengthens the idea of a common ancestry.

<<
Some claim that genetic mutations are the mechanism. But this isn't true; can't be true.

Every mutation either subtracts or corrupts from the DNA inherited from its 'parents'. There is no recorded instance of a mutation causing an improvement which lasts. An example of a corruption giving an apparent improvement is the rare cases of people born with 'six fingers'. I think I'm right in saying that Queen Elizabeth I was such a case. But this is a corruption of the basic design of four fingers and a thumb and does not survive.
>>

Again you are looking at it in too short a time scale and the extent of change from one generation to the next.

"Europe go Mars the right way -- with 100 % metric "

Has the US one landed yet?

Yes, the lander named "Spirit" has successfully landed and has beamed back excellent pictures over the last couple of days. The other one name "opportunity" is due to land later this month.

Sadly Beagle 2 has still not responded and the team are now conceding that it is very unlikely to be recovered.

But, watch out for the images from the Mars Express orbiter that is equipped with a very high quality camera system surveying the whole surface of Mars. They will be the clearest, most detailed and accurate to date.

...and that will be very good - we'll all look forward to it, especially the pictures.

Apart from "euric" perhaps - who appears to have topped himself considering his main reasoning for his posting to this thread!

EVOLUTION – RESPONSE TO ‘MEGA MICKEY’

“Not sure about that 'billions' of fossils, but the fossil record is a very fragmented account of natural history”.

REPLY: With the best will in the world, you cannot describe the fossil record as ‘fragmented’. Not only have billions of fossils already been found, there are billions upon billions of them. Sometimes hundreds, or even thousands, of large animals are found fossilised together in what are known by palaeontologists as ‘fossil graveyards’.

Two additional points here.

The first is that a fossil can only become a fossil if it experiences *instantaneous* burial. The fact that so many large creatures were instantaneously buried, sometimes hundreds or thousands of them together, points in the direction of an almighty catastrophe - or series of catastrophes. The Flood of Genesis fits these data perfectly. That is the scientific method. Get your data, then see which theory best fits the data you have available.

Second, with billions upon billions of fossils, if evolution had happened, you would expect at least *some* intermediate forms to have been found by now. But no. Take for example the trilobite, said to have been fossilised 400 to 600 million years ago. It appears in the lowest and therefore earliest fossil strata. There is nothing in the fossil record to suggest how, step by step, a trilobite came to be a trilobite. Nor is there any evidence of trilobites developing into anything else. What one finds is simply millions and millions of perfectly-formed trilobites, all with the much the same features.

One of these features, incidentally, is an intensely complex eye, consisting of up to 200 hexagonal lenses, and which are capable of seeing in the dark (these creatures are found several thousands or more feet down on the ocean floor).

There is no evidence of any trilobite with, say, just a few lenses - they *all* had this complex eye.

It is not scientific to say: ‘well, there must have been something before the trilobite, and if we wait for a few billion more fossils, some evidence is sure to turn up sooner or later’.

That is an argument based on a *lack* of evidence and therefore unscientific.

No, the honest scientific response is to admit that the available evidence points to a Creator who knew what He was doing.

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“Evolutionary changes occur naturally over thousands of generations”.

REPLY:

What is the * evidence * for this statement of yours? And we are looking at *evidence *. That is what this debate is all about.

The fossil record does not help you, as explained above.

One of my two previous key points was that you cannot show any genetic mechanism for simple creatures to become more complex. Can you, for example, explain scientifically how ‘evolutionary changes’ led to the development of, for example, the human eye, male and female reproductive organs, colour, feathers and wings, pollen, bone, lungs, blood, etc. etc.?

How did the original ‘simple one-celled creatures’ acquire new genetic material? It can’t be done! There is no known biological mechanism.

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“ Subtle changes between one stage and another are not likely to appear so neat and gradual like a movie”.

REPLY: Look at any chart of how one-celled creatures became humans and you will typically see sea creatures changing into fish, fish into reptiles, reptiles into mammals, mammals to chimps, ape-men and then humans. But look for the evidence of how one form evolved into another and, as reputable scientists admit - whether biologists, palaeontologists, geologists or whatever - the evidence for change is absent. You cannot build a theory on absent evidence. And I would respectfully suggest that not only is there no evidence for evolution, the actual evidence is strongly contrary to it.

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“re: ‘..a fantastic array of plants, insects’…Yes, all creatures at every stage are in themselves fully formed and functional and adapted to the environment that exists at the time. The theory of evolution doesn't claim that all intermediate versions of a chain are hapless or ill-formed”.

REPLY: But the theory of evolution does assert that these gradual changes actually happened, yet there is no evidence of them to be found! *All* links between one form found in the fossil record and another are absent

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“The very fact of DNA shows the common denominator between all complex life forms. Which strengthens the idea of a common ancestry”.

REPLY: On the contrary, there is an alternative, simpler explanation that better fits the known facts. That is that a wise Creator used DNA blueprints to plan His creations. So the Creator is the ‘common denominator’. The discovery of DNA strengthens not the idea of a ‘common ancestry’ but a common designer, planner, architect.

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“re: ‘Some claim that genetic mutations are the mechanism. But this isn't true…every mutation either subtracts or corrupts from the DNA inherited from its 'parents'…Again you are looking at it in too short a time scale and the extent of change from one generation to the next”.

REPLY: But you have not dealt at all with my key point, namely that all mutations, without exception, subtract from, corrupt or deform the inherited DNA. Given that mutations are supposed to be *the* key mechanism by which evolution has occurred, it is nothing short of astonishing that evolutionary scientists have not yet come up with even one example of a beneficial mutation. Unless you can give me such an example, you cannot demonstrate how evolution is supposed to happen

_____
ENDS

At least I can claim a good opinion here - "there are more questions than answers".

Thus I remain a sceptic - leaning away from evolution as "the answer".

Face it - the only time we're going to find out is the minute after we die.