posted 12-24-2003 05:52 AM            

which gives details of their involvement for early tomorrow morning.

It has images of the telescope and the kit they are using along with regular updates

Quickly the details are:-

Beagle 2 is scheduled to land on Mars at 2:54 am on Christmas morning. An attempt will be made to establish communications with the lander at about 5 am through an orbiting spacecraft called Mars Odyssey. At 7:15 am, our time, the Sun will set on Beagle 2 and it will spend its first night on the surface until sunrise at at just after 8pm our time. At 10:40 pm it will begin to transmit an on/off sequence each minute - like very slow Morse Code
Assuming that the signal strength is close to what is expected, a positive confirmation could come soon after, but more analysis of the data may be required if only a very weak signal is present. This might, for example, be a result of the lander being on its side so the signal transmitted to Earth is less than we expect. Two further communication sessions are programmed for 11:20 pm on Boxing Day and at 11:16 pm on the 27th December

Phill
UK

posted 12-24-2003 06:30 PM               

"Earth...The Beagle is about to land"

posted 12-25-2003 03:35 AM            

I understand there are a further 8 attempts at trying to make contact with Beagle 2 using Jodrell Bank after this first attempt.