Unlike Curiosity the Beagle2 lander never sent a signal back from Mars. However, as a result of some new HiRISE images we now know where it is and what happened. It landed in 2003, about 5 km from its target in Isidis Planitia but the solar panels didn’t fully deploy. As the receiver was underneath the last solar panel (there are 4) Beagle couldn’t communicate back to Earth. However, a lot of the engineering challenges were met in the Entry, Descent and Landing of Beagle after it was ejected from Mars Express.
These images show the unusual multicomponent, flat-lying shape, high reflectivity relative to the ground surface, and unusual colour compared to the oxidised martian rocks and dust. Michael Roon (ex. of Mars Express) spent many hours going through the full billion pixel images to lead us towards Beagle.
Meanwhile Curiosity is analysing MAHLI (day and night time) and ChemCam RMI images around the Mojave drill site to characterise the rocks that we are planning to drill after the first minidrill attempt.
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