Found: Mars Orbiter Locates Beagle 2 Lander
Published on March 6, 2017
The Beagle 2 Lander, built by the United Kingdom, has been thought lost on Mars since Dec. 25, 2003, but has now been found in images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
A set of three observations with the orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera shows Beagle 2 partially deployed on the surface of the planet, ending the mystery of what happened to the mission more than a decade ago. They show that the lander survived its Dec. 25, 2003, touchdown enough to at least partially deploy its solar arrays.
