Christmas 2003 was bittersweet for Mars scientists. Because one gift they (desperate)wanted never arrived: The British-built spacecraft Beagle 2 (schedule)to land on the Red Planet, radio home the good news and begin a search for life. Instead, mission (control) heard nothing. They finally declared the Beagle 2 lost after months of silence. Many space scientists thought crash-landed or broke up in the thin Martian atmosphere.
But now Beagle 2’s final resting place has been found. New images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed the spacecraft in its (intend) landing region, an enormous impact basin near the Martian equator.
By now, investigators (gather) enough information to piece together probably went wrong: the probe’s solar panels seem to have only partially spread out, throttling(限制) Beagle 2’s power preventing it from phoning home. Without contact with mission control, the probe could not perform any science .
However, the lander appears (damage) and in good condition, and the remains of a parachute and an atmospheric-entry cover lie hundreds of meters away. Beagle 2 may now be considered a partial success, (deliver) the United Kingdom a very late Christmas gift: the nation’s first soft landing on another planet.