Makes Up for Beagle's Blunder

Following NASA's recent success with its Spirit Mars rover, Europe's own Mars Express orbiter sent back its first high-resolution pictures of the planet's surface, much to the excitement of the European Space Agency's (ESA) engineers.

On Monday, agency officials explained the spacecraft captured detailed photos of the planet's rocky and barren landscape, including part of the huge Martian canyon called Valles Marineris.

Over the past week, European controllers have focused on calibrating the orbiter's on-board instruments, including, in addition to its high-resolution stereo camera, a powerful radar that will search beneath the surface for signs of water or ice that may once have sustained living organisms.

Monday's news helps brighten the somber mood at ESA after its Beagle 2 lander failed to report after launching for its own Mars landing on December 19.

Carrying the Beagle 2 (shown below as it might have been), Mars Express was launched last June from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakstan and continued into orbit around the Red Planet on Christmas Day on the first European Mars mission. About two weeks later, NASA landed its Spirit rover on the Martian surface.

Mars Express will continue orbiting the planet for nearly two years carrying two-thirds of the European Mars mission's experiments.

FMI: http://mars.esa.int