Missing Space Probe Mars - The British-built probe named the Beagle2 has been found on the surface of Mars after vanishing 11 years ago, according to scientists Friday. With the missing space probe Mars found, an enduring mystery of space exploration has finally been solved.
It has always been a mystery how the UK-sponsored Beagle 2 Mars lander disappeared on its trip to the red planet's surface. The announcement Friday of the discovery of the missing space probe Mars was done in high-resolution with NASA images taken from orbit, according to CNN.
The landing location of the missing space probe Mars had been identified with the NASA images. The spacecraft appears to be in one piece still.
The missing space probe Mars, now found, is reportedly less than 2 meters (6.56 feet) across when fully deployed. It had been first spotted in the NASA images by Michael Croon of Trier, Germany -- a former member of the European Space Agency's (Esa) Mars Express operations team, according to the UK Space Agency.
Apparently, the probe tried to make a soft touchdown on Christmas Day 2003, using parachutes and airbags. However, there was no radio contact ever made with the probe, according to the BBC.
Several scientists believed that the missing space probe Mars had already been destroyed during the high-velocity impact.
Taken by Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the new photos of the missing space probe Mars has finally put a dot on that notion and scientists have come up with another reason as to what really happened to the European mission.
The design of Beagle has with it a series of deployable "petals", and its solar panels were mounted with them. The new images of the missing space probe Mars, showed that this system did not fully unfurl after touchdown.
"Without full deployment, there is no way we could have communicated with it as the radio frequency antenna was under the solar panels," said Prof Mark Sims, Beagle's mission manager from Leicester University.
"The failure cause is pure speculation, but it could have been, and probably was, down to sheer bad luck - a heavy bounce perhaps distorting the structure as clearances on solar panel deployment weren't big; or a punctured and slowly leaking airbag not separating sufficiently from the lander, causing a hang-up in deployment," he told BBC News.
While there was much joy at the discovery of the missing space probe Mars, there was also sadness as it came a year in the wake of the death of Professor Colin Pillinger, the eccentric but brilliant driving force behind the 2003 mission, according to the AFP.
The probe's principal investigator, Pillinger was given a commemorative award by the Royal Society scientific institution Friday.
His mission never got to explore Mars, however, he is reportedly credited for sparking the public's enthusiasm when it comes to space research.
The outcome of the mission of the missing space probe Mars appears frustrating to the science and engineering teams behind the project, since the success of their mission had been so close.
MRO's data reportedly confirmed the Beagle's touchdown just 5km from the centre of its targeted touchdown area.
Professor Mark Sims of Leicester University, the person who managed the Beagle 2 project, said he was "elated" by the discovery of the missing space probe Mars.
"Every Christmas Day since 2003, I have wondered what happened to it and had nearly given up hope of ever knowing," he said. "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."
The discovery of the missing probe reportedly makes Beagle 2 the first European spacecraft to land successfully on Mars.
The missing space probe Mars, the Beagle 2, was named after HMS Beagle, the ship that carried Charles Darwin to South America and the Pacific in the 1830s, and which led to the theory of evolution.
The failure of the missing space probe Mars was blamed by the Commission of Inquiry - which was jointly set up by the ESA and the forerunner of what is now the UK Space Agency - on poor management and inadequate testing of systems and components. The allocation of a small budget at the project's outset also added to the difficulties of the mission. The mission reportedly had a total budget of near £50m, and is still considered one of the cheapest interplanetary missions in history.
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