Europe's Great Space Race

Part one of a three-part special report:

Last Christmas, the scientists at the European Space Agency's mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, burned the midnight oil. Bleary eyes scanned flickering monitors for signs that the agency's first Mars lander had arrived safely. If things had gone according to script, the Beagle 2 would have sent back a signal playing a short ditty by the British group Blur. But instead of doing a celebratory dance to a pop tune, ESA scientists sat stunned as the computers broadcast nothing but an ominous silence

"It was very tense," David Southwood, the affable, white-maned head of science at the European Space Agency admitted. "We had really committed ourselves to something, and this was the first time the wrong thing happened and we had a null result."

A few weeks later, ESA gave up the search, declaring Beagle dead on arrival. But a guardian angel appeared to be watching over the scientists. Almost as quickly as the news of failure came, the agency chalked up its first Mars success. On Jan. 19, the agency, which includes 15 European member states, released the first spectacular images from the German-designed, high-resolution camera carried by its Mars Express probe, which began orbiting Earth's closest neighbor the same month.

An image of Mars' grand canyon, the Valles Marineris, taken by the German-developed high-resolution stereo camera on board Mars Express.