Beagle 2 what happened has revealed that Beagle 2 may have gone into its pre-programmed surface operations mode and collected data after landing, it just did not transmit it, or the transmission was blocked by a closed panel. Beagle 2 The Beagle 2 was a British Mars lander that was transported by the European Space Agency's 2003 "Mars Express" mission. It was an astrobiology mission that would have looked for past life on the shallow surface of Mars. The spacecraft was successfully deployed from the "Mars Express" on 19 December 2003 and was scheduled to land on the surface of Mars on
Mars 1 deployed. Early telemetry indicated that there was a leak in one of the gas valves in the orientation system so the spacecraft was transferred to gyroscopic stabilization. Sixty-one radio transmissions were held, initially at two-day intervals and later at five days in which a large amount of interplanetary data were collected. On 21 March 1963, when the spacecraft was at a distance of from Earth on its way to Mars, communications ceased, probably due to failure of the spacecraft's antenna orientation system. Mars 1 closest approach to Mars probably occurred on June 19, 1963 at a distance of approximately ,