FAREWELL then, Beagle 2. Last week, the European Space Agency effectively ended its Mars lander mission by beginning an inquiry to investigate the loss of the probe.
The lander was released from the Mars Express spacecraft on a trajectory towards the Red Planet on 19 December, and was due to land on Christmas day, but it has not been heard from since. Six weeks of searching by European and American spacecraft in orbit around Mars, as well as by Earth-based radio telescopes, have failed to find a signal. The Beagle 2 team is scouring images of the landing site for…
