THE exact fate of space probe Beagle 2 will probably never be known, a report released today has concluded.

The spacecraft, which was partly funded by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council in North Star, Swindon, was meant to send back images and messages from Mars on Christmas Day last year.

But despite the mission running smoothly up to the landing, nothing was heard back.

An investigation was launched into the voyage.

But the report, put together by the Beagle 2 project team, states: "It is not possible given the circumstances to define a most likely failure mode.

"It is however very probable that failure occurred during entry, descent and landing or surface deployment.

"Given the complex nature of the former process this is perhaps the phase most likely to have caused the subsequent loss of communication and the mission.

"However, it should be noted that a mode currently eliminated by the Beagle 2 team may have been the cause of the mission loss."

The Beagle team identified several areas which could have caused the failure.

The most likely which was still only ranked a low to medium probability was that the atmosphere of Mars was not as expected.

If it were denser than calculated, Beagle 2 would not have reached terminal velocity, meaning the craft's parachute would not have opened.

The report says: "A better characterisation of atmosphere is required via a variety of methods for future missions."

The other most likely outcome is that the airbags could have failed, or been punctured by rocks.

Other possibilities are that the electronics were too cold to start up on Mars because they were damaged on the way in, that the lander's electronics malfunc-tioned, the parachute failed, or the antenna was damaged, but all of these have been given a "low probability" of being the cause of failure.

If there are to be further missions to Mars things could be done differently.

For a start, the report said there needed to be more money available for extra testing.

"The Beagle 2 team fully agree that more testing would have been valuable and would be keen to carry out such a future test programme with appropriate hardware to eliminate uncertainties in developing future lander systems," says the report.

"The Beagle 2 project was internally managed to high professional standards under severe schedule and financing constraints. Some critical decisions were forced upon the programme due to lack of time to undertake technically preferred tests, following lack of sufficient early funding."

PPARC's chief executive, Ian Halliday, has said that in future projects must be given a clear idea of the amount of money to become available, rather than cash dribbling through.

A further report on Beagle will be released by a House of Commons select committee soon.

Tom Morton