5 Interesting Facts That You Must Know About The British Landing Spacecraft ‘Beagle 2’

Beagle 2 is a British landing spacecraft that formed part of the European Space Agency’s 2003 Mars Express mission. Beagle 2 is the first British and first European probe to achieve a landing on Mars

Here are some Interesting Facts that you must know about ‘Beagle 2‘:

1. The spacecraft was successfully deployed from the Mars Express on December 19, 2003 and landed on Mars on Christmas Day, however, no contact was received at the expected time of landing on Mars.

Here is the image of Beagle 2:

2. ESA declared that the mission lost in February 2004, after numerous attempts to contact the spacecraft were made. The spacecraft’s fate remained a mystery until it was announced in January 2015 that NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, using HiRISE, had found the probe intact on the surface of Mars.

Here is the image of Beagle 2:

The missing Mars robot Beagle 2 has been found on the surface of the Red Planet, apparently intact.

3. The lander has the shape of a shallow bowl with a diameter of 1m and a depth of 0.25 m. The cover of the lander is hinged and folded open to reveal the interior of the craft.

Here is the image of Beagle 2:

4. The main body also contains the battery, telecommunications, electronics, and central processor, heaters, and additional payload items.The lander package has a mass of 69 kg at launch but the actual lander was only 33.2 kg at touchdown.

Here is the image of Beagle 2:

5. The lander arm was to dig up samples to be deposited in the various instruments for study, and the “mole” would have been deployed, crawling across the surface to a distance of about 3 metres from the lander and burrowing under rocks to collect soil samples for analysis.

Here is the image of Beagle 2:

Lost Beagle 2 Spacecraft Found On Mars: