Beagle 2
The
Beagle 2 was a
British Mars lander that was transported by the
European Space Agency's 2003
Mars Express mission. It was an
astrobiology mission that would have looked for past
life on the shallow surface of Mars.
The spacecraft was successfully deployed from the
Mars Express on 19 December 2003 and was scheduled to land on the surface of Mars on 25 December; however, no contact was received at the expected time of landing on Mars. ESA declared the mission lost in February 2004, after numerous attempts to contact the spacecraft were made.
[4]
The
Beagle 2's fate remained a mystery until January 2015 when it was located on the surface of Mars in a series of images from
NASA's
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE camera.
[5][6] The images suggest that two of the spacecraft's four
solar panels failed to deploy, blocking the spacecraft's communications antenna.
Model of own construction, scale 1:25.
