Doug said:

>Sound like you have a few events backwards. The heatshield jetison was
>after the pilot chute deployment, and during the activity of falling from the
>back shell and deploying the main chute.

I'm aware of that. I was describing different scenarios, not necessarily in sequence. The G-sensor would have initiated the sequence.

>They certainly did not screw up the entry vector - the same engineers who
>put MEX into an exact corridor for the MOI burn put that same spacecraft on
>the exact corridor for B2 entry.

I have no doubt that the engineers who controlled Mars Express (MEX) knew what they were doing. Unlike Beagle-2, Mars Express has been a complete success. In all likelyhood it was MEX engineers who managed Beagle-2's entry vector and Beagle-2 entered the atmosphere exactly where it was supposed to. However it is also possible that MEX simply flew a predefined trajectory and made no allowance for Beagle-2 (it was a piggyback payload). It might have been up to Beagle-2's engineers to say "jettison us here". Under that scenario, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the entry vector was incorrect.

Gary