ESA Prepares To Bid Adieu

No contact has been made with the Beagle 2 lander, despite repeated efforts over the last few days to communicate via the Mars Express and Mars Odyssey spacecraft and the Jodrell Bank radio telescope in Cheshire, UK. At a press briefing in London on Monday afternoon, members of the Beagle 2 team described the latest efforts to contact their missing lander. "We haven't found Beagle 2, despite three days of intensive searching," said Professor Colin Pillinger, lead scientist for Beagle 2. "Under those circumstances, we have to begin to accept that, if Beagle 2 is on the Martian surface, it is not active. Detailing the efforts to contact Beagle 2 in recent days, Mark Sims, Beagle 2 Mission Manager from the University of Leicester, explain