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
To equip the lander with rockets would have made it far too heavy to transport on Mars Express. Instead, engineers at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, will precisely orientate the Mars Express spacecraft to point Beagle 2 at Mars. Everything relies on dropping Beagle 2 in the right place at the right time.
Collision course …
