The time Milton Keynes played a role in a Mars Landing in 2003

    As the world watches NASA's Perseverance Rover land on Mars, we remember Beagle 2's story from being unveiled in a Milton Keynes lab to going up on the red planet.

    In December 2002, the Beagle 2 was unveiled at the Open University based in the city. 

    The Mars Lander was conceived by a group of British academics headed by Professor Colin Pillinger of the University, in collaboration with the the University of Leicester.

    Its sole purpose was simple: to search for signs of life on Mars.

    A year later, with the European Space Agency, Beagle 2 went in to orbit on Friday, 19th December 2003.

    The expectation was for Beagle 2 to land on Mars a week later on Christmas Day 2003. Then things didn't go to plan. 

    No contact was received at the expected time of landing on Mars. Nobody knew if Beagle 2 had made it.  

    After numerous attempts to contact the spacecraft were made, it was declared lost by the ESA just two months later. 

    That was, until January 2015. 11 years after being declared lost, Beagle 2 had been found on the surface. 

    Andrew Coates, the lead investigator on Beagle 2’s stereo camera system, said of the discovery: "There is every chance that the camera flipped up and began taking images after the landing. All we need is an astronaut and a USB stick to go and get them!”

    Who knows if Milton Keynes will play another part in another space mission in the future. 

    But to quote one David Bowie, will we ever find "Life on Mars"?

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