And to think that yet again a little place at the back of Woop Woop here in Australia is at the forefront to retrieve the signals.
More detailed info can be found here at the Radio Telescope site.
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/observers/d...obs_guide.html
What fascinating times we live in.
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Mars to Canberra: the Beagle has landed
By Simon Benson
December 25, 2003
LINK
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_...55E421,00.html
THE crew at Canberra's Deep Space Communications Complex are in "critical lock down" mode. Nobody is allowed to enter the control room.
This afternoon about 2pm, the 150 engineers at the Tidbinbilla site southwest of Canberra will make history when they take the first signals from the European-launched Beagle 2 as it lands on Mars on a mission to look for evidence of life.
If all has gone according to plan, the 67kg probe will now be parachuting through the Martian atmosphere.
It will bounce to a soft landing on inflatable bags, flip open, then start transmitting a signal that tells controllers it has safely touched down.
Inside the control room will be a pensive Peter Churchill, the dish director. More than likely next to him, watching a bank of computers closely, will be NASA's representative Neal Newman.
For in just a matter of weeks, the 70m parabolic dish, the largest in the southern hemisphere, will have to do it all again.
Two NASA probes are now zooming toward the planet also and are expected to land in January. They will be searching for evidence of past liquid water. Essentially, they are looking for past life also.
It is the Parkes story all over again. Instead of taking the first signals of man landing on the Moon we will be taking the first signals from Mars.
"Tidbinbilla's role is critical," Mr Newman said. "There is a huge sense of excitement. The science fiction writers got it wrong. It's Earth invades Mars."
In two weeks, Mars will have six spacecraft orbiting or patrolling its surface and Tidbinbilla will be largely responsible for keeping track of them.
The all-Australian engineering team, funded by NASA to the tune of $20 million a year, will receive the first signals from Beagle 2 and then relay them to the European Space Agency in Germany where it will be downloaded and beamed around the world.
"We will be picking up the craft on deceleration and then on landing," Mr Churchill said.
"The Beagle 2 will be relaying information through the Mars Odyssey which is orbiting Mars and we will be taking that information from Odyssey.
"Working in this field is similar to what I have heard about airline pilots . . . long periods of relative boredom highlighted with intense periods of excitement."
Today is one of those periods of intense excitement.
It's the busiest the dish engineers have ever been. As one of the three dishes which make up NASA's Deep Space Network it is currently keeping track of 20 other spacecraft in orbit around the solar system.
It will be performing a similar role when the team takes on NASA's two Mars Explorer Rovers when they land in January.
"Our involvement with all these missions is two-way radio communication with spacecraft. We receive and send data to the craft," Mr Churchill said.
"It is all computer controlled but it requires the presence of humans to conduct the orchestra. We are renting Parkes for the next couple of months because we are so busy."
Mr Newman said the ultimate goal of the missions was to find life outside Earth.
The daily telegraph.