Beagle 2: Lost and Found on Mars

On Christmas Day 2003, the UK's Beagle 2 spacecraft was due to arrive on Mars - instead, it vanished without a trace, until a chance discovery over a decade later showed how tantalisingly close the unique mission had come to success. This animation envisages what Beagle 2 may look like now, after twenty years on Mars.
This short film has been in the making for some time and has been something of a labour of love for me. Beagle 2 made a huge impact on me as a child and I hope that this animation serves as a fitting tribute to all of those who worked on the program.
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Credits:
Animation, modelling, texturing & rendering by Benedict Jewer
Additional models & textures from Poliigon
Interview with Colin Pillinger taken from his BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Disks episode, available on BBC sounds:
www.bbc.co.uk/...
Sounds of Mars from NASA JPL:
mars.nasa.gov/...
Music from PremiumBeat - "Interstellar Love" by Ballian De Moule
Additional SFX from MixKit
Software used: Blender 3D, Substance Painter, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro
The Photographer plugin for Blender was invaluable.
Dedicated to Professor Colin Pillinger, Professor Dave Barnes, and the entire Beagle 2 team.
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Website: www.benjewer.com
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TurboSquid: www.turbosquid...
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[@justdark863]

You need to show this to some folks who worked on Beagle 2, they’d defo appreciate

[@SWcollateralstory]

I am sure millions of space exploration enthusiasts would love to see this! How can we get this to them? It is so beautiful!

[@AnthonyHortin]

What a beautiful tribute.

[@AnthonyRosbottom]

This is an amazing film and fitting tribute for the 20th anniversary. Excellent work. The shot with the stary sky reflecting on the solar panel was epic!

[@zana3d]

Amazing work! Thank you for bringing this to life.

[@schrimblo]

this genuinely goes so hard dude

[@aeroterrestrial]

always upsets me thinking about beagle 2, but this was great, good job!!!

[@Ujjwalkumar-je3me]

bro this is fire

[@CardZed]

Thank you for this.

[@blenderinthegrass]

Very nice, and I learned something!

[@davidcooper2496]

Amazing work!!

[@StuNankivell]

Brilliant! Love how the simplest component of this sequence - the typography, just pulls you in at the start and then leaves you both moved and feeling a sense of wonderment at the end. It goes without saying that your 3D renders are top-notch and inspirational. Cheers from South Australia!

[@BenJewer]

Thank you very much!

[@saran9736]

Underrated stuff!

[@aaronspacee]

I still hold onto the hope that a Beagle 3 is launched one day Beagle 2s core design is excellent and lends itself well to being a tag along passenger on an existing mission, meaning it could realistically be done once more. the exact cause of the failure isn't known but there are of course contributing factors (thinner atmosphere due to weather resulting in hard landing and jamming), which could be accounted for in a future mission. i just want to see that british flag on the surface of mars, with a camera onboard to show it

[@BenJewer]

Based on Prof Mark Sims' recent 20th anniversary talk on it, it sounds like the most likely cause of the failure was just bad luck. Could be as simple as one of the airbags getting ripped on a sharp rock and deflating too early. So frustrating that an identical model of Beagle 2 might have worked perfectly - it came so close. At least a lot of the Beagle 2 team went on to be involved in ExoMars. Hopefully they are able to launch that sooner rather than later.

[@Sedaura]

@@BenJewer Mars is sadly known to be a graveyard of spacecrafts, with less than half of the missions sent there being successful. For the longest time, it was thought that Beagle 2 simply crashed on the planet. Having landed intact is already a success in itself.

[@ExcaliburAero]

Beagle 2 deserved better :(

[@lil_bread4025]

cooked