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
Sol (day on Mars) 39 minutes and 35.244 seconds. The sidereal rotational period of Mars—its rotation compared to the fixed stars—is only 24 hours, 37 minutes and 22.66 seconds. The solar day lasts slightly longer because of its orbit around the sun which requires it to turn slightly further on its axis. When a spacecraft lander begins operations on Mars, the passing Martian days (sols) are tracked using a simple numerical count. The two Viking missions, Mars Phoenix and the Mars Science Laboratory rover "Curiosity" count the sol on which each lander touched down as "Sol 0", as will the InSight mission. Mars Pathfinder