June 2nd - on this day in 2003, a Starsem Soyuz FG/Fregat rocket launched ESA - European Space Agency's first planetary mission, Mars Express, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The 1,123 kg spacecraft also included the 33 kg Beagle 2 lander. Mars Express's orbital insertion around the red planet occurred on Christmas Day, 2003, with Beagle 2 landing the same day. Contact with Beagle 2 could not be established, so it was assumed the lander crashed. In 2015, however, high-resolution phot

Planet Mars: North Pole Dry Ice & Sand Dunes | Europe's Mars Express FriendsofNASA.org: With its High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter captured a region in Planum Boreum at Mars’ north pole on April 14, 2023. Here, frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) covers vast sand dunes. Celebrating over 20 years at Mars! The Mars Express mission was launched on June 2, 2003, from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on board a Russian Soyuz rocket with a Fregat upper stage. In a

An incredibly detailed image of Mars captured by ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, from the north polar ice cap, to the cloud covered Hellas Planitia in the south, the largest impact crater on Mars. Mars Express has been orbiting Mars since 2003. The spacecraft has sent back myriad breathtaking images of our planetary neighbour in the past decade and a half, captured by the probe’s on-board High Resolution Stereo Camera – and this image is no different. The spacecraft imaged this slice across the p

June 2nd - on this day in 2003, a Starsem Soyuz FG/Fregat rocket launched ESA - European Space Agency's first planetary mission, Mars Express, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The 1,123 kg spacecraft also included the 33 kg Beagle 2 lander. Mars Express's orbital insertion around the red planet occurred on Christmas Day, 2003, with Beagle 2 landing the same day. Contact with Beagle 2 could not be established, so it was assumed the lander crashed. In 2015, however, high-resolution phot