June 2nd - on this day in 2003, a Starsem Soyuz FG/Fregat rocket launched ESA - European Space Agency's first planetary mission, Mars Express, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The 1,123 kg spacecraft also included the 33 kg Beagle 2 lander. Mars Express's orbital insertion around the red planet occurred on Christmas Day, 2003, with Beagle 2 landing the same day. Contact with Beagle 2 could not be established, so it was assumed the lander crashed. In 2015, however, high-resolution phot