December 25th

On this day – 25th of December 2003 – Mars landing of Beagle 2 

Beagle 2 is a British landing spacecraft that was part of ESA's (European Space Agency) 2003 Mars Express mission. Beagle 2 was named after the HMS Beagle. After a successful deployment from the Mars Express on the 19th Beagle 2 was supposed to land on Mars on December 25th. How ever the Beagle 2 lost contact and never contacted back to Earth. After numerous attempts to contact the craft was considered lost and the mission a failure in February 2004. The fate of Beagle 2 was not known until January 2015 when NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter located Beagle 2. The images from the NASA vehicle suggest that the solar panels failed to deploy and thereby blocking the communications antenna.