EUROPE: Two European satellites are closing in on Mars with a rendezvous scheduled for early on December 25th. One is a lander that will touch down on the red planet's surface early on Christmas morning and start playing music by the pop group, Blur.
The Mars Express/Beagle 2 mission is the European Space Agency's first satellite launch to visit a planet in our solar system. It is hugely ambitious from a scientific point of view, with a package of experiments that could possibly confirm the presence of past or present life on the red planet.
The mission, if all goes according to plan, should also capture the public's imagination given the Beagle 2 lander. The tiny rover is only about the size of an open umbrella and weighs no more than 34kg. Even so it is expected to be the star performer.
Assuming it lands in one piece, it will begin transmitting live pictures from the dusty red surface and carry out a series of experiments designed to find water and signs of any life hidden in the Martian soil.
The paired satellites, Mars Express and the piggybacked Beagle 2, were sent aloft on June 2nd from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan. The two travelled safely together the 100 million kilometres towards Mars until yesterday when they separated as planned. "We can confirm that we have Beagle 2 separation," the mission's flight director, Mr Mike McKay, stated yesterday from the agency's headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany. Originally from Belfast, Mr McKay has managed the mission's ground activities and shared responsibility for its seven-month trip to Mars.
The two are now separate entities with separate missions. Mars Express will inject itself into Martian orbit and provide the all important communications link with earth, relaying information and instructions back and forth to the Beagle 2 lander. It also carries twin cameras and a battery of experiments to study minerals on the surface and the atmosphere. It has a radar system that will probe up to 5 km deep into the surface.
The Beagle 2 lander must undertake the most challenging part of the journey, getting itself safely onto the Martian surface. Its lower face is a heat shield that will slow and protect it as it plummets into the thin atmosphere above the planet. A parachute will then open and further reduce its speed to a leisurely 65 km per hour. Once close to the ground the chute will be cut and the lander will bounce down to the surface protected by large air bags.
On the ground Beagle 2 will send out an initial tracking signal, music by Blur, which should be heard by either Mars Express or US satellite Mars Odyssey, confirming its safe landing.
Beagle 2 also carries a collection of experiments including a "mole" which can burrow into the soil and under rocks for clean samples.
Like any good beagle it has a "paw" fitted with twin cameras that can reach out and pick up samples. These can be deposited in an onboard oven, turned into heat samples and their contents analysed.
Importantly the paw also carries a microscope which can zoom in on samples that might offer telltale signs of life or fossils. It will also send back reports on climate and weather.
All going well it will scuttle about on the surface for 180 days before the rigours of life on Mars switch it off for ever.