its the most efficent in terms of fuel required to get there.
effectivley what was done was a "shot across the bow" they lobbed the probes
out and mars came along and smacked them.

If you are interested check out
"hoffman transfer orbit".

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pic microcontroller discussion list
> [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Robert Rolf
> Sent: Tuesday, 27 January 2004 1:43 PM
> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: Re: [OT]: Beagle2
>
>
> 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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