Whilst HMS Beagle set forth for Tiera del Fuego, a place described as "desolate, depressing, sterile and repulsive", Beagle 2 is destined for Mars and the search for the chemical evidence of life (past or present) on another planet. Mars is even more inhospitable and the search will have to extend below its surface layer.
When Beagle 2 was first conceived in 1997 it was to be a
lander weighing about 108 kg and to be part of a network providing
geophysical survey data. That plan was shelved when the mass
available on Mars Express was revised to only 60 kg.
And so it was a case of deja vu. The original HMS Beagle was so cramped that to accommodate Darwin, the Padre was told he couldn't go. Darwin, a very tall man, had to remove a drawer at the bottom of his bed to make room for his feet because his bunk was too short.
The Beagle 2 team were equally ingenious and during the period April to October 1998 convinced ESA's scientific and technical review committees that it could operate within the reduced mass budget.
