A European spacecraft bound for Mars in June will “feel” miles below the surface of the red planet for ice and water. It will also launch a little British lander, roughly the size of a backyard barbecue, which will bounce down just north of the equator and burrow into the Martian topsoil in search of chemical evidence of life.
April 15th, 2003
UK’s first space mission to be seen in public
The UK’s first ever voyage to another planet is to be shown in full view of the public. Visitors to The National Space Centre in Leicester will be able to see everything the controllers of the mission to Mars do. It’s something Nasa, the space organisation in the US, has never done.
April 11th, 2003
How far can a dentist’s drill go?
When ESA’s Mars Express reaches the Red Planet in December 2003, there will be a drill on board its Beagle 2 lander. This drill will dig into the surface to take samples of the Martian rocks. Who would imagine that the creativity of an enthusiastic dentist is behind a ‘cosmic’ drill?
April 10th, 2003
Searching for water on Mars
A British scientist says he is confident that Europe’s first solo mission to Mars will find water under the surface of the Red Planet. Professor Iwan Williams says a radar instrument (Marsis) on the Mars Express spacecraft can look deep enough to find water, if it is there.
April 3rd, 2003
Mission moves to Kazakhstan
In the sixth instalment of the BBC News Online Mars Express diary, project manager Rudi Schmidt describes the triumphant arrival of Europe’s Mars spacecraft at its launch site. The date for shipping the spacecraft to Baikonur gets closer and closer. So many things have to be ready at the same time.
March 19th, 2003
Mars Express leaves for Baikonur
Mars Express, the first European spacecraft to visit the planet Mars, has completed its tests at Toulouse, France. After six months extensive thermal environmental, mechanical and electric tests, the spacecraft with the Beagle 2 lander will leave for Ba
March 18th, 2003
Faulty component delays Mars Express launch New Scientist
A faulty component has set back the launch date for Europe’s first ever solo mission to Mars, but project scientists say the delay could in fact be advantageous. The Mars Express spacecraft was scheduled to launch on 23 May from the Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The repair now means the spacecraft is unlikely to take off before 6 June. The launch window extends until 23 June.
March 4th, 2003
WA space station to open Herald Sun
THE European Space Agency will formally open its first deep space ground station in Western Australia tomorrow, three years after construction first began. The ESA station and its antenna, which supports a 100-tonne, 35-metre dish at New Norcia, 134km north of Perth, will become part of the agency’s global tracking station network. The 40-metre high, 630-tonne antenna will be used to communicate with the ESA’s first mission to Mars this year.
March 3rd, 2003
Mars mission ‘looking good’
Beagle 2 – the robot that will look for signs of life on Mars – has been successfully fitted to its mother ship and is ready for transport to its launch site. The British-led effort to touch down on the Red Planet is part of the European Space Agency’s (Esa) Mars Express mission to be launched in May 2003. The robot lander was fitted to the main spacecraft on Thursday and preliminary test results show the fitting went perfectly. Beagle 2 has now been put into storage and will soon be transported to Baikonur, Kazakhstan, for blast-off.