Europe's Mars Probe Now In Orbit

An initial attempt to contact Europe's first Mars lander failed Thursday, but its companion ship swung into orbit around the Red Planet and flight controllers were still optimistic about finding the tiny probe.

The European Space Agency is only the third agency to reach the fourth planet from the sun, points out CBS News Space Consultant Bill Harwood. Preliminary data analysis shows the orbiter arrived at Mars in good health after its seven-month voyage from Earth.

"ESA has a new mission now," said Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain. "Europe is orbiting around Mars! ... This is a very beautiful day for ESA, a very beautiful day for Europe. Even though we are still waiting for the signal of Beagle, this is just a matter of time and we are confident we shall get this signal in the next hours or days."

European Space Agency scientists had hoped that an American satellite orbiting Mars, the Mars Odyssey, would pick up a signal from the Beagle 2. It registered nothing, but space officials had warned in advance that contact could be delayed if the probe landed at an angle or needed more time to unfold.

"This is not the end of the story — this was the first opportunity," the European Space Agency's director of science, David Southwood, said at mission control in Darmstadt, Germany. "Getting signals back from Mars is not a straightforward operation."

The next chance to contact the Beagle 2 falls to Britain's Jodrell Bank Observatory, which will try to pick up the lander's signal at 5:45 p.m. EST on Christmas Day.

"We're sure Beagle is down on the surface, and we just need to hear from it," Southwood said.

Controllers were encouraged, however, because they received a signal from the Mars Express, the Beagle companion spacecraft that is orbiting the planet. That ship will relay the lander's data back to Earth if all goes to plan.

Scientists in Britain, where the Beagle was built, were disappointed that the first attempt to confirm its safe landing failed, but were far from giving up hope.

"It's a bit disappointing, but it's not the end of the world. Please don't go away from here believing we've lost the spacecraft," Colin Pillinger, lead scientist on the Beagle 2 project, said in London.

Shortly before 10 p.m. EST Wednesday, around the time the lander was supposed to touch down, the mother ship fired its engine to slow it enough for Mars' gravity to pull it into orbit. Controllers detected a signal from a small antenna aboard the orbiter as it emerged from behind Mars on schedule at 11:11 p.m. EST Wednesday.

The orbiter's main antenna then rotated and also reported back.

"At least the initial checks show that the spacecraft is in very good condition," flight director Michael McKay said, to applause from controllers.

Still, the Beagle is the showpiece of the Mars mission. The British-built lander, released by Mars Express six days ago, had been scheduled to enter the upper Martian atmosphere at 9:45 p.m. EST and bounce to a landing north of the Martian equator after a 7½-minute descent.

Parachutes and gas bags were to cushion the Beagle's impact. The 143-pound lander, about the size of a car's tire, is supposed to unfold its solar panels and send an initial signal — a few notes of music composed by British band Blur.

Since last week's separation, the Beagle has neither received commands nor sent back data to mission control.

Getting a working spacecraft to Mars has proven enormously difficult since attempts began 40 years ago. Of 34 unmanned American, Soviet and Russian missions to Mars since 1960, two-thirds have ended in failure. Beagle 2 would be only the fourth successful Mars landing if all goes well.

NASA's Mars Odyssey will continue to make daily flights over the landing site. Mars Express won't be able to make contact with Beagle until Jan. 3 because its initial orbit is too high and will have to be adjusted.

Beagle, named for the ship that carried naturalist Charles Darwin on his voyage of discovery in the 1830s, is equipped with a robotic arm to sample surface rock and soil.

Mars Express is expected to orbit overheard for at least a Martian year, or 687 Earth days, probing as deep as 2.5 miles below the surface with a powerful radar to look for underground water. It will also map the surface with a high-resolution stereo camera.

Mars' surface is dry and cold, with ice caps of frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice. Scientists believe that billions of years ago the planet may have been warmer and had enough liquid surface water to support life, which might have survived in cavities underground.

The planet's surface has features that some think could be dry riverbeds and ancient coastlines.

The Beagle 2, if it survived, will get company in the next few weeks. NASA's Spirit, one of two identical robot explorers, is expected to land Jan. 3. Its sibling, Opportunity, is scheduled to settle on the opposite side of the planet Jan. 24.

The United States successfully landed two Viking craft in 1976 and the Mars Pathfinder in 1997, but two years later lost the Mars Polar Lander during descent. Japan this month abandoned a Mars mission after failing to position the Nozomi probe in planetary orbit.