MRO Finds Beagle 2 Quietly Sitting on Mars
Beagle 2 Lander Found on Mars
“The UK-led Beagle-2 Mars lander, which hitched a ride on ESA’s Mars Express mission and was lost on Mars since 2003, has been found in images taken by a NASA orbiter at the Red Planet. Beagle-2 was released from its mother craft on 19 December 2003 and was due to land six days later. But nothing was heard from the lander after its scheduled touchdown, and searches by Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Odyssey mission were fruitless.”
Is it the case that the failure of one of the solar ‘plates’ to deploy, thereby covering the radio, is what doomed this little ship? What a heartbreak.