Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos
Beagle 2
References
Images
Beagle 2
Britannica AI Icon

Beagle 2

landing rover
Written by
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Information Architects maintain a master list of the topics included in the corpus of  Encyclopædia Britannica, and create and manage the relationships between them.
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last updated

Quick Summary

Beagle 2
Beagle 2 Professor Colin Pillinger posing with the European Space Agency's Beagle 2 Mars lander prior to its unsuccessful deployment from the Mars Express orbiter in 2003.

Beagle 2 was a British lander, part of the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission launched in 2003. Named after Charles Darwin's ship, Beagle 2 was designed to analyze Martian soil and rock samples using various spectroscopy methods. It was intended to land in Isidis Planitia, a basin believed to have been formed by water.

Beagle 2 was released from Mars Express on December 19, 2003, and reached the Martian surface on December 25, 2003. However, no radio contact was ever established. In 2015, images revealed that Beagle 2 had landed intact but failed to deploy its antenna fully, preventing communication. The Mars Express orbiter, meanwhile, successfully mapped Mars and provided evidence of subsurface water and atmospheric methane.1

Summary created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
2 Britannica Sources
  1. Mars Express
  2. Mars Polar Lander

Ask Britannica AI about this topic

Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.