Background
In 1976 the Viking landers visited Mars and made the first and only attempt to discover life on the planet. The experiments were inconclusive. Since then missions to Mars have revealed much information about our red cousin but they have also suffered a high failure rate.
In 2003/4 with Mars coming so close to the earth a flotilla of spacecraft have been launched towards Mars. One of the most exciting of these is the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission.
Mission Purpose
To try and answer some of the unanswered questions about the creation and evolution of Mars and find whether it has ever harboured life.
The Spacecraft
Actually, the Mars Express is two spacecraft hooked together. The mothership is the Orbiter which will spend its serviceable life studying Mars by going in to orbit around it.
Image the entire planet at high resolution giving us incredible views of the Martian geography.
Study the Martian sub-surface, surface, atmosphere and ionosphere.
The other spacecraft was the Beagle 2 lander. Unfortunately the Beagle 2 lander never reported back from the surface of Mars and it is assumed there was some sort of failure during its landing sequence.
Further Reading
ESA Mars Express
The European Space Agency are running the Mars Express mission and you can find details about all aspects of the project at their website.
Beagle 2
The official web site of the Beagle 2 mission.
RELATED PAGES AT ASTROCENTRAL
The scientific equipment on the Mars Express mission
Search for life on Mars
Search for life in the universe
Information about Mars
The Martian Myth
