Mars explorer sends back pictures

European space officials have received the first pictures of Mars sent back by the Mars Express spacecraft as it heads for a Christmas rendezvous with the red planet.

The pictures, taken from 3.36 million miles away, are not top quality but prove that the spacecraft’s high-resolution camera is in working order before it begins orbiting Mars and taking pictures close up.

The camera test is one of a series of checks and rehearsals before a series of intricate manoeuvres beginning on December 19, when Mars Express will release its British-built Beagle 2 lander towards the Martian surface on a mission to probe for signs of extra-terrestrial life.

Mars Express will then steer away from a collision with the planet and early on December 25 will fire its main engine for about 30 minutes to put it into Martian orbit.

“We will have to carry out some very precise navigational operations,” Gaele Winters, the European Space Agency’s director for technical operations and support, said at the agency’s mission control centre in Darmstadt in western Germany. “There is a certain level of tension in the centre.”

The spacecraft, launched on June 2 on a Russian Soyuz-Fregat rocket from Kazakstan, has weathered solar eruptions that last month bombarded it with high-energy particles, temporarily disrupting its computers.

An unexpected drop in electrical power to about 70% of what was expected is also not expected to derail the mission, officials said.

Flight operations director Michael McKay said controllers have been busy rehearsing in computer simulations how to deal with potential troubles, including failure of the main engine to be used to slow the craft into orbit.

The controllers solved the problem by using its smaller rockets in the simulation.

“We have flown every possible contingency, and some impossible ones,” McKay said.

Of the 34 unmanned American, Soviet and Russian missions to Mars since 1960, two thirds have ended in failure.

The 143-pound Beagle 2 will use a robotic arm to gather and sample rocks for evidence of organic matter and water, while Mars Express orbits overhead.

During its working life – currently planned for one Martian year, or 687 Earth days – it is hoped Mars Express will send back detailed overhead pictures of the surface and use a powerful radar to scan for underground water.

Scientists think Mars once had water and appropriate conditions for life but lost it billions of years ago, possibly after being hit by asteroids. It is believed water might still exist as underground ice.