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Point And Shoot
Any football or rugby fan knows that when a player kicks the ball, there is no longer anything they can do to influence its path. The player must trust to their own skill for the ball to reach its intended destination. What has all this to do with Mars Express? Three days from now, on 19 December 2003, Mars Express must, like an expert rugby player, 'pass' Beagle 2 on to the next player, Mars. The problem is that Beagle 2 has no thrusters on board, so cannot influence its own trajectory.
Right place at the right time
Collision course ... If nothing is done to alter its trajectory, instead of falling into orbit, Mars Express will slam into Mars on 25 December. Yet nothing can be done to avert this impending catastrophe until Beagle 2 has been released, since to move the spacecraft beforehand would ruin the landing. At ejection, the spacecraft simply lets go of the lander. Beagle 2 will be spun to keep it stable and pushed away with the gentlest of forces; nothing dramatic like a 'blast off' at launch. Then, and only then, can engineers send the necessary commands for Mars Express to fire its engine and alter its course to avoid destruction on the surface of Mars. Related Links Mars Express Beagle 2 SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Speedera To Stream Mars Express Christmas Landing Santa Clara - Dec 18, 2003 Speedera Networks, a leading global provider of on-demand distributed application and content delivery services, and Capcave, an Internet systems integrator based in the Netherlands, today announced that the two organizations are working directly with the European Space Agency (ESA) to provide live streaming of the Mars Express probe scheduled to arrive on Mars at Christmas.
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