Latest Beagle 2 Stories

According to New Scientist, Britain's unlucky Mars probe, Beagle 2, may have met its end due to a miscalculation.The probe, which was built to discover signs of life, disappeared in 2003 on Christmas Day.Scientists at Queensland University believe the probe lost control during a descent due to a miscalculation of the Martian atmosphere.Professor Colin Pillinger, team leader for Beagle 2, welcomed the new theory."We are as interested as anybody to find out the truth," he...

Europe's flagship space mission to Mars will likely be delayed by two years.Due to the project's high cost, the ExoMars rover, which will search for signs of life on the Red Planet, will not launch until 2016.Governments say the 1.2bn-euro price tag is deemed to be too high and space officials have been asked to find ways to reduce it.One possibility would be securing more financial and technical involvement from the Americans and the Russians."This way we could retain the full...

A team of scientists from the United States and the United Kingdom has developed a technique using ultraviolet light to identify organic matter in soils that they say could be used to document the existence of life on Mars.The researchers' proposed instrumentation could operate on any Mars lander or rover, they say, such as the current Phoenix mission or NASA's Mars Science Laboratory scheduled for launch in 2009 "“ both of which are looking at habitability "“ or the European Space...

Beginning late on 25 May, Mars Express will execute a series of pre-programmed commands specially designed to support NASA's Phoenix lander. The ESA spacecraft will conduct a high-speed slew, enabling it to track Phoenix as it enters the Martian atmosphere.Mars Express will point its Lander Communications Antenna toward Phoenix's planned entry trajectory and record signals transmitted from the lander as it plunges toward the surface during the critical entry, descent and landing (EDL)...

ESA's Mars Express mission control team are ready to monitor Phoenix's critical entry, descent and landing onto the Martian surface on 26 May 2008. The Mars Express mission control team have completed major preparations for supporting the entry, descent and landing (EDL) phase of NASA's Phoenix mission to the Red Planet. On 25 May, Mars Express will point towards Phoenix's planned entry trajectory and record signals broadcast from the lander as it plunges through the Martian atmosphere.The...

Artificial intelligence (AI) being used at the European Space Operations Center is giving a powerful boost to ESA's Mars Express as it searches for signs of past or present life on the Red Planet.Since January 2005, Mars Express has been using its sophisticated instruments to study the atmosphere, surface and subsurface of Mars, confirming the presence of water and looking for other signatures of life on and below the Red Planet's rocky terrain.The spacecraft generates huge volumes of...

ESA's Mars Express will keep an eye on NASA's Phoenix lander as it makes its way to the Martian surface, setting an example for international cooperation and interplanetary networking.Phoenix's launch is scheduled for 4 August this year and it is expected to land on the Red Planet in the spring of 2008. The mission will investigate the Martian environment and will look beneath the frigid, arctic landscape in search of conditions favourable to past or present life.At NASA's request, ESA's Mars...

By Kate Holton LONDON (Reuters) - The scientist behind the lost 2003 Beagle 2 mission to Mars said on Tuesday the craft may have been spotted in NASA pictures which indicate the project very nearly worked. Beagle 2, named after the ship Charles Darwin sailed in when he formulated his theory of evolution, was built by British scientists for about 50 million pounds ($90 million) and taken to Mars aboard the European Space Agency's orbiter Mars Express. It was due to land in a crater on...

By Kate HoltonLONDON -- The scientist behind the lost 2003 Beagle 2 mission to Mars said on Tuesday the craft may have been spotted in NASA pictures which indicate the project very nearly worked.Beagle 2, named after the ship Charles Darwin sailed in when he formulated his theory of evolution, was built by British scientists for about 50 million pounds ($90 million) and taken to Mars aboard the European Space Agency's orbiter Mars Express.It was due to land in a crater on the red planet in a...

By Kate HoltonLONDON (Reuters) - The British scientist behind the lost 2003 Beagle 2 mission to Mars said on Tuesday the craft may have been spotted in Nasa pictures which indicate the project very nearly worked.Beagle 2, named after the ship Charles Darwin sailed in when he formulated his theory of evolution, was built by British scientists for about 50 million pounds ($90 million) and taken to Mars aboard the European Space Agency's orbiter Mars Express.It was due to land in a crater on the...