British scientists continue to hope for communications with the Beagle 2 lander on Mars, despite pretty obvious signs that the mission has failed in some essential way. There are a number of reasons why they keep hoping, including considerations that it may have landed in an awkward position, or in a crater, or there’s a problem with its transmitter, but they all add up to a disappointing return on investment for the research group. I hope they don’t give up soon, but eventually they will have to face the reality that their lander didn’t make it. You pick up the pieces and go on, no matter how difficult. In the meantime, the NASA Mars Express missions are about to commence — the first one lands tomorrow (January 3) and if it makes it down safely, will deliver a mobile lab to the dusty red plains of Mars.

Today the Stardust mission has its close encounter with Comet Wild 2 and should pass within 200 miles of the comet’s surface. If all goes well, it’ll scoop up some comet dust and return a wealth of data about the conditions in the neighborhood. I think this is pretty cool, given that I studied comet plasma tails for a number of years. Granted it’s a different breed of tail than the dust tail, but the mission is giving us another long-awaited “look” at a comet up-close-and-personal that astronomers have been anticipating for years. During the Halley years, we had a flotilla of six spacecraft head out to visit the comet’s nucleus, and some pretty compelling images and data flowed out of that experience. I hope that the same result comes from this mission, and that the Mars folks get what they want, too.