It's not a power issue - it's the UHF antenna being obscured by one or more of the solar panels. The UHF antenna was under all 4 panels. Without them deploying.....the UHF antenna can't 'see' the sky - and a carbon composite solar panel covered in silicon and wires is a very good way to block UHF signals.

There is a MOC image footprint over the lander, taken several months after the loss, IIRC. But the image was not received on Earth.

-Tim.

Yes that's what I was thinking also when we got to see this image, most landers stand on a platform with legs.
Beagle2 was a gamble where such had been removed to save weight on one "economy sized" lander. Even so UK can now claim to actually have managed a soft, though bouncing landing on Mars.

Not really. Of the 8 'successful' landers (I include Beagle 2) - 4 landed on airbags, three with legs, one on its wheels.

For MER and MPF, by virtue of their airbags, they ended up rolling roughly to a stop in a flat enough place for initial deployments. I would expect B2 to have done something similar, but realistically, who knows.

Dear Phil, could you infer, please, from the precise location of Beagle 2 the altitude of the landing site ?
Thanks so much in advance ! VM

It's approx -3748m according to Google Earth.

Thanks so much Doug

The 3rd HiRISE image is now out

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_039308_1915

Tantalizing. There seems to be ALMOST enough resolution to get data enough to constrain possible failure modes. Does anyone know if the UK space agency is trying to do such 'forensics'?

One thing I'd like to know is whether Beagle 2 could theoretically still be functional. With a partial deployment there would be some electrical power available I'd assume, so isn't it possible in theory that its still humming along, keeping warm with its heaters? Admittedly it has already spent a long time on the surface, much longer than its intended mission lifetime. It also depends on exactly how the thermal control is implemented and how much electrical power is actually available in the state it is. Without a way to communicate with the probe it isn't like it matters either, it's simply a matter of curiosity.

Entirely academic.... without UHF comms, the definition of 'functional' isn't really of merit.

Yes, as I said, it doesn't really matter with no way to communicate with it. But do you know if there is anything wrong with my logic? For example, the heaters might not even have been turned on depending on how the thermal control on Beagle 2 was set up. I haven't found anything that is specific enough to tell.

(edit)
Actually while viewing a presentation about Rosetta I happened about a mention by Ian Wright where he says that it is being looked into if the mission could be "resurrected". Who knows what he means by that though, maybe he's hoping that a rover with a suitable arm lands nearby to give it a helping hand? Here's a link either way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...DI4bD7ThA#t=300

I have managed to find the Beagle 2 Lander in Google Earth. It took half an hour because the lander was... smaller than I expected, no wonder it took so long to find it!
Here is an overlay of the HiRISE image with the lander's location.
Click to view attachment

A new study has been released about what happened to Beagle II :-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37940445

A paper by the Beagle 2 team:
Identification of the Beagle 2 lander on Mars

Thank you very much 'mpc' for this very nice info.
The review history of the paper is worth reading too... especially Al McEwen's "Appendix A".
http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/con...er-comments.pdf