EARLIER this month the European Space Agency launched its first interplanetary probe, the Mars Express.

The Beagle 2 project (www.beagle2.com) is the British-led effort to land on Mars.

The site offers you a behind-the-scenes look at the craft and the work that has gone into the project.

Almost a third of the craft is full of analysing equipment that will be used to collect and manipulate the samples from the surface of the red planet.