One ray of hope comes from the fact that Odyssey was not designed to detect signals from Beagle. The Mars Express orbiter (the part of the mission that continues to work fine and that the media continues to ignore) was designed for that purpose. So hopefully, once it is in position early next month we'll finally hear from Beagle. Patrick Chuck Hards wrote:

Mars has a habit of eating space probes, there's no doubt about it. While there may still be slim hope for Beagle 2, it looks like the planetary equivalent of the "kite-eating tree" got the planetary scientists again. Taking Patrick's observations as a guide, I've tried to avoid getting my news from main-stream sources and stayed with those friendly to science. Less soap opera that way.

The past few unsuccessful landers have just made that little Sojourner rover all the more remarkable, don't you think?... And those Viking landers still cast a long shadow, don't they?

Keep your fingers crossed. There's an ID chip in this lost pup.

C.o