Assembly of the UK Open University's Beagle 2 Mars lander has been completed, and the craft will be delivered to Astrium in Toulouse, France, on 30 January for mating with the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft. The mission is set for launch from Baikonur in June on a Starsem Soyuz FG booster, and the Mars Express is due to land in December. The 60kg (132lb) Beagle 2 is the smallest and most heavily instrumented Mars lander. The craft's onboard laboratory will analyse subsurface soil, rock interior and the atmosphere in a bid to find proof that microscopic life may exist on the planet.
Source: Flight International
