SPACE WIRE
Europe launches first ever Mars space mission
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AFP) Jun 03, 2003
Europe launched its first ever bid to explore Mars Monday, successfully embarking on a half-year journey to unearth one of the oldest mysteries; whether there is life on the Red Planet.

Ninety minutes after liftoff from the Russian space base in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the orbiter -- carrying the "Beagle 2" lander -- separated from an unmanned Soyuz rocket and began its 400 million kilometer (250 million mile) trip to uncover the mystery of life on Mars.

If all goes according to plan, on Christmas Day the Beagle-2, named after the ship that took Charles Darwin on a quest for the origins of life, will land on the planet and begin its exploration.

The successful launch marked Europe's official entry into the interplanetary travel club, ESA scientific director David Southwood said following liftoff at 11:45pm (17:45 GMT).

"This is our first step. We are off to a great start," Southwood said.

"Europe is off to Mars... We can be proud of the speed with which we managed to rise up to that challenge," he added.

Professor John Zarnecki from Britain, part of the Beagle 2 team, told Sky News television he was pleased with the launch but added there was a long way to go before the probe reached its destination.

"Inside I was feeling incredibly nervous, but so far, as far as we can tell, everything looks fantastic," he told Britain's Sky News.

"We have a lot of hurdles to get over before we get to that final goal of landing on the surface of Mars and starting to make scientific measurements which is really what us scientists really want to do - that's the purpose for us being here," he added.

A few hours before launch time, Southwood voiced his appreciation of Europe's cooperation with Russia in the 190-million-dollar (162 million euro) Mars mission.

"I'm really happy at this launch, also happy with the Russian involvement: this would have been unthinkable 20 years ago," he said.

The orbiter is to reach Mars in less than seven months, its seven cameras, radars and spectrometers ready to scour the planet's surface from orbit.

Once in orbit around the Red Planet, the Mars Express will launch the Beagle-2, which will descend to the equatorial region of the Isidis Basin to test the Martian soil, probably landing in the small hours of December 25.

Scientists hope that its lander's findings could, like the data Darwin brought back from the remote Galapagos islands, revolutionise man's understanding of his place in the universe by detecting signs of life on Mars, a notion that has fired men's imagination for centuries.

The Beagle-2, seen in simulated images bouncing on the Martian surface like a large football, contains a package of sophisticated instruments, a pair of stereoscopic cameras, a solar power pack and a "mole" robot that can inch along the Martian surface, or drill a metre or more below it, to sample the soil.

The Mars Express will be followed by two vastly better-funded US missions, one scheduled for June 8 and the other provisionally due to lift off on June 25, also aiming to settle once and for all the question of whether life exists, or has ever existed on Mars.

They will be joined by a Japanese mission launched in 1998, the Nozomi, which after getting lost due to technical mishaps is due to arrive next year.

All four missions are taking advantage of the fact that in August Earth and Mars will be in opposition -- at their closest points.

For the moment however, the Beagle-2 is hogging the limelight, its profile raised by the presence on board of a spot painting by the British artist Damien Hirst -- to serve as a colour calibration chart for its cameras -- and a call-sign composed by the British pop group Blur.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair earlier sent a message in which he paid tribute to the scientists and engineers who made the mission possible.

He said: "Beagle 2 offers fascinating potential to learn more about the fundamental origins of life, and I wish it good luck on its difficult and challenging mission."

First results from the mission are expected "early next year," Southwood said.

ac-bb-eh/pvh

SPACE.WIRE