British scientists plan new Mars mission

British scientists have begun planning a "Beagle 3" mission to Mars for launch in 2007, even as they try their final attempt to contact the missing Beagle 2 lander.

A message will be sent during the next seven days from the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft telling the Beagle 2 - if it is operational - to reboot its computer. That carries the risk that the machine will never return to life if it was working.

But Professor Colin Pillinger, the chief scientist on the Beagle 2 mission, admitted that that would be no different from the situation now.

"We have to begin to accept that Beagle 2, if it's on the Mars surface, isn't active," he said.

Pillinger was optimistic that a Beagle 3 lander could still do pioneering science because it would be able to reuse the experiments that had been built into Beagle 2.