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
Mars Polar Lander the lander was declared lost. On May 25, 2008 the Phoenix lander arrived at Mars, and has subsequently completed most of the objectives of the "Mars Polar Lander", carrying several of the same or derivative instruments. Traveling at approximately 6.9 kilometers/second and 125 kilometers above the surface, the spacecraft entered the atmosphere and was initially decelerated by using a 2.4 meter ablation heat shield, located on the bottom of the entry body, to aerobrake through 116 kilometers of the atmosphere. Three minutes after entry, the spacecraft had slowed to 496 meters per second signaling an 8.4-meter, polyester parachute to deploy