Unidentified object spotted by Mars express?

[Hortlund]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3543295.stm

The meeting was also told that an unidentified object could be seen in the image taken immediately after Beagle was ejected from its mothership, Mars Express, five days prior to the landing attempt.


Say what??

[Dinger]

That would be the heat shield shearing off due to the inattentiveness of the French re-entry package designers, who clearly specified Deutsche Industrie Normale 6 Ausf. 23 adhesive, and the British assembly team, that used DIN 6 Ausf. 23A.

[CyranoAH]

I firmly believe that ESA has a problem in integration procedures. The standards are incredibly high and the tolerance is close to zero, but more attention needs to be placed in the pre-flight integration testing.

It was the principal cause of the design error that caused the explosion of the first flight of the Ariane 5.

Daniel