Mars Express

Key facts

Mission & specifications

Mission

Mars Express was Europe's first mission to another planet, and it has become one of the longest-serving spacecraft ever to orbit Mars. Launched on 2 June 2003 and named for the speed with which it was built, it slipped into orbit on Christmas Day 2003 and has been working ever since. Its instruments transformed our picture of the planet. A high-resolution stereo camera mapped Mars in colour and three dimensions, revealing dramatic canyons, volcanoes and dried-up river valleys, while spectrometers charted the minerals and gases that record its watery past. Most striking of all, its MARSIS ground-penetrating radar peered beneath the south polar ice and, in 2018, found reflections interpreted as a body of liquid water — a possible subglacial lake — kilometres below the surface, a tantalising and still-debated result. Mars Express carried the British-built Beagle 2 lander, released a few days before orbit insertion; the little craft reached the surface but never called home, and was found years later in images, its solar panels only partly unfolded over its antenna. The orbiter itself far outlived its planned life, returning a continuous record of Martian weather, atmosphere and surface change, and serving as a communications relay for landers and rovers from several nations — a quiet, enduring workhorse of Mars exploration.

1. 2003Launch toward MarsLaunch

   Europe's first planetary mission sets off, carrying the British-built Beagle 2 lander.

2. 2003Mars orbit insertionArrival

   Mars Express enters orbit; Beagle 2, released days earlier, reaches the surface but never calls home.

3. 2018Hint of a subglacial lakeMilestone

   MARSIS radar detects bright reflections beneath the south polar ice, interpreted as liquid water.

4. 2023Two decades at MarsMilestone

   One of the longest-serving Mars orbiters keeps mapping the planet and relaying data for landers.

Images

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