ESA/Denman productions

University of Leicester/Beagle 2/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

HiRISE/NASA/Leicester

The UK-made Beagle 2 lander has been found on the surface of Mars more than a decade after it was thought to be lost forever.

The 2003 launch was the result of a collaboration of UK academics, whose nifty lander rode to the Red Planet aboard the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft. By December 19 it had reached its destination and was released from the spacecraft.

"It was due to enter the atmosphere at about 02.51 on the 25th December," said Mark Sims, professor of astrobiology and space instrumentation at the University of Leicester. But nobody heard from Beagle 2 following its ejection from the Mars Express and it was presumed lost. Sims said he had "given up hope" of ever knowing what happened to the lander.

Now, thanks to images taken by Nasa's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), we have at last found the Beagle 2's final resting place. Images show that it did indeed make it to the surface of Mars and even landed where it was expected to, at the Isidis Planitia basin. For 11 long years, the Beagle 2's remaining team members have been scouring images captured by HiRISE for signs of their design. That work—and unbelievable patience—has paid off, because the images tell a story of how exactly the lander got to where it is today.

They show the lander's rear cover, what looks like a parachute, and the lander itself. Sims explained that as the photos were taken over a number of years, the Sun's angle changed and helped the team identify the various parts—glints where there is a flat, metallic surface, for instance. The objects are all the correct size, helping in identification, but show that the lander only partially deployed.

Part of what made the Beagle 2 special was the ingenuity with which it was designed in just four short years. The team had to cut around 50 kg of weight out of the design after discovering that they had less space onboard the Mars Express than previously thought. "It was way ahead of its time," said Sims. "The design of Beagle 2 was a very innovative design—it was a pocketwatch-type opening in terms of its lander."

It included a series of parachutes and airbags that were designed to cushion the touchdown, before the lander unfolded to expose its solar panels and start operations. This was where the error appears to have occurred as the landing gear appears to have not fully opened.

The solar panels would have had to have fanned out fully for the radio antenna to be able to transmit data. As that did not happen, the UK team could not communicate with Beagle 2. The team still does not know exactly what caused this error in deployment.

"The images show that we came so close to achieving the goal of science on Mars," Sims explained. "[They] vindicate the hard work put in by many people and companies both here in the UK and around Europe and the world in building Beagle 2. The highly complex entry, descent and landing sequence seems to have worked perfectly and only during the final phases of deployment did Beagle 2 unfortunately run into problems.

"Colin [Pillinger, Beagle 2's principal investigator] enthused everybody. I just find it sad that Colin passed away last May and unfortunately will never know how close Beagle 2 got to doing the world class science that he and the rest of the team proposed."

Pillinger, who was also involved in the ESA's Rosetta mission, died suddenly in 2014, aged 70. He played a huge role in bringing the excitement of the UK's space exploration to the public, even getting Blur to record the Beagle 2's call sign.

The lander was the UK's first interplanetary mission, and the government contributed £22 million ($33.3 million) to its development and launch. If it had completed its mission successfully, Beagle 2 would have sent a signal back to the Mars Express, taken a photo of the landing area, and scooped up soil samples for testing. Even better, something called "the mole" (a planetary undersurface tool) would have crawled from Beagle 2 at a speed of 1 cm every five seconds to burrow into the surface and collect samples at a distance of up to three meters from the lander.

The development of Beagle 2 paved the way for much of the UK's space exploration work today.

This story originally appeared on Wired UK.

Listing image by ESA/Denman productions