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
Phoenix (spacecraft) Phoenix (spacecraft) Phoenix was a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission on Mars under the Mars Scout Program. The "Phoenix" lander landed on Mars on May 25, 2008. Mission scientists used instruments aboard the lander to assess the local habitability and to research the history of water there. The total mission cost was about US $386 million, which includes cost of the launch. The multi-agency program was headed by the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, under the direction of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The program was a partnership of universities in the United States, Canada,