October 22, 2002. Copyright Graphic News, All rights reserved.

Caption for picture GN14384: Picture shows 3 cubic cm sample of FerrariÕs distinctive red paint ÒRosso CorsaÓ -- nicknamed FRED -- which will accompany the European Space AgencyÕs Mars Express spacecraft when it heads to the Red Planet. The sample, which will speed to Mars at some 10,780km/h (6,700 miles) per hour, is contained within a specially constructed glass globe, 2cm in diameter, and sealed into a PMMA (polymethyl metacrylate) block. MUST CREDIT ESA

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Europe heads for the Red Planet

October 22, 2002 -- Graphic News, London: Scientists are racing to finish building a spacecraft in time for a European mission to Mars. If successful, it will mark the first time countries other than the U.S. or the Soviet Union have landed a spacecraft on another planet.
If all goes according to plan, in early June 2003, a Soyuz/Fregat booster will thunder into the sky from the Russian launch site at Baikonur in Kazakhstan, and the European Space AgencyÕs most ambitious mission to date -- ÒMars ExpressÓ -- will have begun. 
Mars Express carries a payload of seven advanced analytical instruments and will orbit the planet for two years. Once in orbit a small, British-built lander, Beagle 2, will detach from the side of the probe and hurtle at 22,530 km/h (14,000mph) through the thin Martian atmosphere. Parachutes will slow its descent and, protected by three airbags, the craft will bounce across the rocky surface before begining its historic mission. 
Christened Beagle 2, after Charles DarwinÕs legendary vessel of the 1830s, the lander will chart considerable new scientific territory, particularly in astrobiology. The lander will provide scientists with their first opportunity since the two Viking missions in 1976 to analyze rock and soil samples in situ. These measurements are to be a key element in the Mars Express mission, which will also seek to confirm the presence of large amounts of water detected by NASAÕs Mars Odyssey spacecraft last May.
But trips to the Red Planet have been fraught with problems. Of the 34 U.S. and Soviet missions to Mars since 1960, 19 have experienced some kind of failure. In 1999 NASAÕs Mars Polar Lander smashed into the surface after a false signal caused its engines to shut off too soon. A few months earlier, the Mars Climate Orbiter burned up in the planetÕs atmosphere after a mix-up of imperial and metric measurements.
Upon landing, Beagle 2 will unfold like a clamshell, spreading four solar panels and activating its UHF antenna. Its first task will be to beam back a unique call sign to mission control on Earth. Professor Colin Pillinger, the lead scientist on the Beagle 2 project, has recruited the band Blur to compose a five-note blast of pure Britpop for the occasion.
ÒThe UK doesnÕt give space research such as high a priority as other countries,Ósaid Pillinger. ÒThatÕs why Beagle 2 has to be different -- in the beginning we didnÕt have any money, so we had to create a publicity machine to convince people that we had a project worth funding.Ó 
The call sign will be followed by a brief telecast of a spot painting by artist Damien Hirst. The painting -- a series of coloured dots painted with metal oxides and other known minerals on the Beagle 2 -- will enable the spacecraft to readjust its supersensitive stereoscopic cameras and calibrate its spectrometers before they begin to analyze Martian materials.
The scope of these scientific ambitions is belied by the size and cost of the project. With a landed mass of less than 30kg, Beagle 2 resembles a spinning top with a diameter about the width of a bicycle wheel. Perhaps the most exciting of all the Beagle 2Õs instruments is its ÒMole.Ó The small robot will literally detach itself from the lander's body and crawl across the dusty ground at a speed of six metres (20 feet) an hour before burrowing under nearby rocks and boulders to analyze soil samples for evidence of Martian life -- any forms, long dead, or still alive -- shielded from the sterilizing rays of the Sun.
The Mole will deliver samples to a hopper on the lander platform, where they will be analysed in a miniature chemical lab to determine whether any carbonate minerals, if they exist, have been involved in biological processes.
ÒDifferent carbon-bearing materials combust at different temperatures,Ó says Ian Wright of BritainÕs Open University, who is principal investigator on BeagleÕs gas analysis package.
ÒAt 300-400¡C, organic material burns, at 600-700¡C carbonate rocks break down and at higher temperatures, diamond burns.Ó
ÒThe next stage is to use a mass spectrometer to measure the ratio of the different isotopes of carbon in the carbon dioxide generated at each temperature step.Ó
As several very fundamental life processes on Earth have a preference for the ÒlightÓ isotope carbon 12 over ÒheavyÓ carbon 13, sedimentary organic material has a higher carbon 12-carbon 13 ratio than carbonate rocks. On Earth, an increased ratio is accepted as indicative of life, even where all other evidence has been destroyed, explained Wright.
Beagle 2 will also be the first lander not to be fully financed by public money, but by the scientific and academic community. To supplement the limited resources of these institutions, private sponsorship has also been sought: Ferrari are paying for a sample of its red paint, ÒRosso Corsa,Ó  to travel to the planet. The total budget for Beagle 2 is $44 million, says Pillinger. This must be compared to NASAÕs $151 million Odyssey and $165 million Mars Polar Lander.
Confirmation of vast amounts of water on Mars could provide water for life support, hygiene and fuel for a manned mission to the Red Planet, and return trip back to Earth.
ÒWe have the spacecraft. WeÕve got the experiments. WeÕve got the ideas of how to send more of them and you have to do this before you risk men,Ó Pillinger said.
/ENDS

Sources: ESA, Open University, Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute