The part that puzzles me is why they didn't launch 9 months earlier so that they
could have been landing when Mars was at it's closest (8 light minutes instead of
twenty). I imagine is probably has something to do with differential velocity
management. It's probably easier to 'catch up' with Mars, than it is to time
an accurate 'shot across the bow'

And think about it. Mars is 20 LIGHT MINUTES away at the moment, yet
they were able to land within their 40 x 3 mi target. Utterly amazing navigation.

Robert

Jake Anderson wrote:
>
> mars was the closest its been for 40 000 years or so this year.
> but that would really make little difference.
> Mainly its just a coincidence I think.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: pic microcontroller discussion list
> > [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Howard Winter
> > Sent: Tuesday, 27 January 2004 9:40 AM
> > To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> > Subject: Re: [OT]: Beagle2
> >
> > On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 12:44:47 -0700, Robert Rolf wrote:
> >
> > > Maybe the way to reliably get to mars is to have a few dozen
> > layers of air
> > > bags that can dissipate energy as they burst.
> >
> > That's exactly what Beagle 2 used!  There's no evidence that the
> > airbags idea failed, of course, but
> > *something* went wrong...
> >
> > > KISS seems to be working the best on Mars.
> >
> > Well we seem to have a 33% failure rate at the moment...
> >
> > Incidentally, why are there so many Mars missions arriving there
> > all at once?  Is there some
> > astronomical-geometry that favours it?
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Howard Winter
> > St.Albans, England

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