UK spacecraft missing for 11 years landed on Mars

A British spacecraft which disappeared as it approached Mars in search of alien life has been spotted on the Red Planet’s surface, the head of the UK Space Agency has confirmed.

The Beagle 2 probe has not been seen or heard from since December 2003 and had been presumed destroyed.

But UK Space Agency chief executive David Parker said today that high resolution pictures taken by Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft showed it actually successfully landed 12 years ago.

Dr Parker said: “The history of space exploration is marked by both success and failure. This finding makes the case that Beagle 2 was more of a success than we previously knew and undoubtedly an important step in Europe’s continuing exploration of Mars.”

Mr Parker told a press conference in London: ``What we can say with some confidence today is that Beagle 2 is no longer lost and furthermore it seems we are not looking at a crash site.

“We have good evidence of Beagle 2 resting on the surface of Mars.

“These images are consistent with the Beagle 2 having successfully landed on Mars but then only partially deploying itself.”

The agency said the images ``identified clear evidence for the lander and convincing evidence for key entry and descent components on the surface of Mars''.

Professor Mark Sims of the University of Leicester, who was an integral part of the Beagle 2 project, said: “I am delighted that Beagle 2 has finally been found on Mars.

“Every Christmas Day since 2003 I have wondered what happened to Beagle 2. My Christmas day in 2003, alongside many others who worked on Beagle 2, was ruined by the disappointment of not receiving data from the surface of Mars.

“To be frank, I had all but given up hope of ever knowing what happened to Beagle 2. The images show that we came so close to achieving the goal of science on Mars. The images vindicate the hard work put in by many people and companies both here in the UK and around Europe and the world in building Beagle 2.

“The highly-complex entry, descent and landing sequence seems to have worked perfectly and only during the final phases of deployment did Beagle 2 unfortunately run into problems. I view it as a great achievement that the team built Beagle 2 in a little over four years and successfully landed it on the surface of Mars.

“It was a great pity we couldn’t have delivered the world-class science Beagle 2 may have brought and even sadder that Colin (Pillinger) and other colleagues who died in 2014 didn’t live to see the discovery that Beagle 2 made it to Mars.”

Because of the partial deployment, it will not be possible to recover Beagle 2 and its data.