David Southwood from the Cassini mission to Saturn, landed successfully on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Southwood later described the Huygens landing as "the highest point of all" from his ESA career. Southwood had also led the team which developed the magnetometer on the main Cassini spacecraft. During 2003 ESA launched a largely British lander, Beagle 2, which was carried to Mars by the larger Mars Express spacecraft. All contact with Beagle 2 was lost before it reached the surface of Mars, and the project was considered a failure. ESA was heavily criticised for its management of the mission. Southwood suffered public criticism
Exploration of Mars The spacecraft reached an altitude of 120 km before reentry. Mars 1962A was a Mars fly-by mission, launched on October 24, 1962 and Mars 1962B an intended first Mars lander mission, launched in late December of the same year (1962). Both failed from either breaking up as they were going into Earth orbit or having the upper stage explode in orbit during the burn to put the spacecraft into trans-Mars trajectory. Mars 1 (1962 Beta Nu 1), an automatic interplanetary spacecraft launched to Mars on November 1, 1962, was the first probe of the Soviet Mars probe program to achieve