Mars Express

Chronology

Mission timeline

1. June 2, 2003, 17:45 UTC

   Launch

   Launched on a Soyuz/Fregat from Baikonur

   Launch took place on a Soyuz/Fregat from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 2 June 2003 at 23:45 local time (17:45 UT, 1:45 p.m. EDT), with the Mars Express and Fregat booster put into a 200 km Earth parking orbit; the launch/orbital information page gives the same instant as 2003-06-02T17:45:00Z. NSSDCA's Mars Express page prints no Funding Agency line at all, so the agency here is taken from its own first sentence, that Mars Express is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to Mars. No page cited by this record prints a participating-state list for the orbiter; the one country any cited page attributes to this mission's hardware is the United Kingdom, on Beagle 2's own page, whose Facts in Brief reads Funding Agency Unknown (United Kingdom). The country list is therefore narrower than the mission and is recorded that way rather than filled in.

   Earth
2. December 19, 2003, 08:31 UTC

   Deployment

   Beagle 2 released on a ballistic course to the surface

   The Beagle 2 lander was released on 19 December at 8:31 UTC (9:31 CET) on a ballistic cruise towards the surface. On 20 December, Mars Express fired a short thruster burst to put it into position to orbit the planet. Beagle 2's own page prints the release as 19 December 2003 at 8:31 UT and describes the lander package as 69 kg at launch with the actual lander only 33.2 kg at touchdown.

   Mars
3. December 25, 2003

   Loss of contact

   Beagle 2 declared lost after its scheduled landing

   Beagle 2 was declared lost after no communications were received following the scheduled landing on Mars. Attempts at contact were made for over a month after the expected landing at 2:54 UT December 25. A board of inquiry was appointed to look into the reason for the failure and released its report on 24 August 2004. No concrete reason for the probe's failure was determined. Factors that were considered as plausible causes of the failure were unusually thin atmosphere over the landing site, electronic glitches, a gas bag puncture, damage to a heat shield, a broken communications antenna, and collision with an unforeseen object. The two NSSDCA pages agree on the expected landing time of about 02:54 UT on 25 December, and this event carries the day rather than that time because no page cited here says a landing took place.

   Mars
4. December 25, 2003, 02:47 UTC

   Orbit insertion

   Entered a 250 km x 150,000 km capture orbit

   The Mars Express Orbiter fired its main engine for 37 minutes on 25 December at 2:47 UT (9:47 p.m. EST, 24 December) and went into a highly elliptical 250 km x 150,000 km initial capture orbit with an inclination of 25 degrees. The orbit was adjusted by four more main engine firings starting on 30 December to the desired 258 km x 11,560 km near polar (86.3 degree inclination) orbit with a period of 7.5 hours.

   Mars
5. 2026

   Milestone

   Still in operation after two decades

   ESA's Mars Express page, fetched on 2026-09-02, gives Status: In operation and 2 decades of operation, and says that since beginning science operations in 2004 Mars Express has provided breathtaking views of Mars in three dimensions, provided the most complete map of the chemical composition of the atmosphere, studied Mars's innermost moon Phobos in unprecedented detail, and traced the history of water across the globe. NSSDCA's page is older and stops at As of September 2015, the orbiter continues to operate.

   Mars

Mission architecture

Vehicles

• Mars Express Orbiter · Orbiter

  Destinations: Mars

  • Beagle 2 · Lander

    Destinations: Mars