A British spacecraft which disappeared as it approached Mars in search of alien life has been spotted on the Red Planet’s surface, the head of the UK Space Agency said today.
The Beagle 2 probe has not been seen or heard from since December 2003 and had been presumed destroyed.
But UK Space Agency chief executive David Parker said today high resolution pictures taken by Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft showed it successfully landed 12 years ago.
He said: “Beagle 2 is no longer lost. It seems we are no longer looking at a crash site. These images are consistent with Beagle 2 landing on Mars but only partially deploying.
“The history of space exploration is marked by success and failure. This finding makes the case that Beagle 2 was more of a success than we previously knew and an important step in Europe’s continuing exploration of Mars.”
