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| Mars Express Looks for Beagle |
ESA PR 01-2004
As of Wednesday 7 January 2004, and for the following three days, ESA's
Mars Express orbiter will be as little as 315 kilometres above the landing
area of the still-silent Beagle 2. |
| Date: 06 Jan 2004 |
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| Mars Express releases Beagle 2 |
ESA PR 83-2003.
This morning, ESA's Mars Express flawlessly released the Beagle 2 lander that it has been carrying since its launch on 2 June this year. Beagle 2 is now on its journey towards the surface of Mars, where it is expected to land early in the morning of 25 December. |
| Date: 19 Dec 2003 |
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| Beagle 2 Landing Site |
| Beagle 2 is due to separate from the Mars Express orbiter on 19 December. Six days later, 25 December 2003, it will land on the surface of Mars and begin a series of experiments. |
| Date: 12 Dec 2003 |
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| Planet Mars from 5.5 million kilometres |
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| Date: 03 Dec 2003 |
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| Europe Lands on Mars - media event at ESA/ESOC |
| ESA Mars Express probe is scheduled to arrive at Mars at Christmas : the
Beagle 2 lander is expected to touch down on the surface of the Red Planet
during the night of 24 to 25 December. |
| Date: 26 Nov 2003 |
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| Mars Approaches Earth |
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| Date: 27 Aug 2003 |
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| ESA's Mars Express first check-out nearly complete |
| SNR 4-2003 |
| Date: 03 Jul 2003 |
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| Rescheduling of some Beagle 2 'cruise check-out' tests |
| The instruments on board ESA's mission to Mars, Mars Express, are in the process of being tested to verify that they have survived the launch successfully and will work properly. One of these tests on the Mars Express lander, Beagle 2, has been postponed to the first week of July 2003. |
| Date: 24 Jun 2003 |
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| Mars Express now 1 million kilometres from Earth |
| This morning, at 5:30 UT, Mars Express passed the 1 million kilometre mark in distance away from Earth on its journey towards the Red Planet. |
| Date: 06 Jun 2003 |
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| Clamps away, Mars Express eases its grip on its lander |
| Europe's first mission to the Red Planet, continues its successful mission with another successful 'high-risk' post-launch milestone. Mars Express engineers breathed a sigh of relief this morning at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), in Germany. |
| Date: 05 Jun 2003 |
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| Mars Express en route for the Red Planet |
| The European Mars Express space probe has been placed successfully in a trajectory that will take it beyond the terrestrial environment and on the way to Mars - getting there in late December 2003.
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| Date: 03 Jun 2003 |
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| ESA INFO 12-2003 Mars Express - how to be the fastest to the Red Planet |
| ESA's Mars Express is a pioneering mission for several reasons. It is the first European voyage to Mars, it has been built at much less than the usual cost, and in record time. |
| Date: 02 Jun 2003 |
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| ESA INFO 11-2003 ESA sets ambitious goals for the first European mission to Mars |
| On 2 June 2003, the first European mission to Mars will be launched. It will also be the first European mission to any planet. Mars Express has been designed to perform the most thorough exploration ever of the Red Planet. It has the ambitious aim of not only searching for water, but also understanding the 'behaviour' of the planet as a whole. However, the most ambitious aim of all may be that Mars Express is the only mission in more than 25 years that is daring to search for life. |
| Date: 20 May 2003 |
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| ESA PR 28-2003 ESA's Mars Express ready for launch |
| Just before midnight on 2 June 2003 (23:45 local time, 19:45 CEST), a Soyuz rocket operated by Starsem will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and Mars Express will be on its way. The spacecraft was given the green light to launch following a successful flight readiness review on 3 May 2003. |
| Date: 05 May 2003 |
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| Looking for life of any shape or form |
| On 25 April 25 1953, James D. Watson and Francis H. Crick published an historic paper in Nature that would change the fate of modern science. They proposed that DNA, the molecule of complex life forms, had the shape of a double helix. Today, scientists from all areas are working together to answer the ultimate question: can life (in any shape or form) exist anywhere else in the Universe? |
| Date: 01 May 2003 |
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| 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? |
| Date: 08 Apr 2003 |
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| OK, our next caller is... from Mars! |
| It is midnight on 1 January 2004 and you want to send a greeting on your mobile phone to a friend. Sorry, the line is too busy, try again later. If you think you are alone with this problem, you are wrong. Space agencies have had to work out ingenious solutions to prevent similar 'engaged, call later' tones from happening on Mars. For the first time, there will be seven spacecraft on the Red Planet at the same time. Will they all be able to 'phone home'? |
| Date: 25 Feb 2003 |
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| Landers feel the heat on space missions |
| Space is certainly a cold place, but spacecraft have to face exteremely high temperatures when they are exposed to the Sun's radiation. However, there are other extreme situations in which spacecraft are subject to tremendous heat. ESA's spacecraft must endure temperatures from hell... |
| Date: 30 Jan 2003 |
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| Beagle 2 delivery for integration on Mars Express |
| The Mars Express prime contractor and the Mars Express ESA Project Manager have agreed the final delivery date for the Beagle 2 Mars lander with the Beagle team. |
| Date: 10 Dec 2002 |
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| Driving force behind Mars Express |
| The Ferrari Red Paint will not be the only thing breaking all speed records when it hurtles towards the Red Planet on-board the Mars Express spacecraft in 2003. The spacecraft itself has already broken some speed records of its own. Mars Express is the fastest-built satellite of its type in the history of space engineering. |
| Date: 22 Nov 2002 |
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