European probe ready to land on Mars

LONDON — Europe's first attempt to land an unmanned probe on Mars entered its final phase on Friday when a disc-shaped landing craft named Beagle II separated from the Mars Express spaceship and began a series of maneuvers to orbit the red planet before bouncing onto the surface early on Christmas Day.

The 73-pound Martian explorer was conceived by Colin T. Pillinger of the Open University in Milton Keynes, England. Funds for the $60 million project were drawn from a variety of agencies and sources that Pillinger and his colleagues have yet to fully disclose.

But they were so determined to advance the exploration for life on Mars that they succeeded in winning support from the European Space Agency to add the Beagle II lander to the Mars Express orbital exploration mission.

Pillinger expressed great satisfaction on Friday, telling the BBC that when he conceived the Martian landing mission in 1997, he wanted to take advantage of the planet's remarkably close alignment with Earth this year.

"This is definitely a case of seize the moment," he said.

The modest spaceship — a dowdy affair that resembles a doorknob — has struck a chord of national pride for Britons, many of whom are expected to tune in Christmas morning to monitor the fate of the plucky little craft. Beagle II carries just 5 percent of the weight of the Viking lander that America sent to Mars in 1976.

The Mars Express and Beagle II lifted off from Earth on June 2 from the Baikanor, Kazakhstan, spaceport on a Russian Soyuz-Fregat launcher.

"It was a relief, absolutely," Zeina Mounzer, a senior Mars Express engineer said at the mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany, after the separation, according to The Associated Press. "We have all been waiting for this moment for a long time, and when our screens lit up, we were ecstatic."

The Beagle II is named for the ship that took Charles Darwin around the world, but British tabloids have already engaged in some space age wordplay on the 1969 American moon landing, announcing with pride, "The Beagle Has Landed."