...Beagle2 ephemera

 

Collected at a talk given by Colin Pillinger, the driving force of the Beagle2 mission, on 22^nd May 2002, at the Cheltenham Festival of Science.

The Beagle2 lander was part of the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission. Launched on 2^nd June 2003, its specific purpose was to look for signs of life on Mars, past or present. Sadly the lander failed to deploy correctly, and that part of the mission was officially judged a failure. However, much science was learned in the building of it, and thirteen years on the Mars orbiter to which it was attached continues to map the planet.

Since Colin Pillinger's sad death in 2014, Beagle2 has been spotted on the surface of Mars by NASA's orbiter. The speculation is that, although it landed safely, the solar panels did not open properly to allow the release of the communications antenna. It was a case of "so near, and yet so far", or perhaps, "so far, and yet so near".