Battleangel

The launch is due later today from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Mars Express is a revolutionary project since it has been constructed within a very narrow timeframe and at a amazingly low cost. About €300M for a newly designed lander and orbiter is quite remarkable. The Mars Express is also the most thorough investigation attempted so far.

Objectives include:

The scientific objectives of the Mars Express mission represent an attempt to fulfil in part the lost scientific goals of the ill-fated Russian Mars-96 mission.

Global high-resolution photogeology (including topography, morphology, paleoclimatology, etc.) at 10 m resolution.

Global spatial high-resolution mineralogical mapping of the Martian surface at 100 m resolution.

Global atmospheric circulation and high-resolution mapping of atmospheric composition.

Subsurface structures at km-scale down to permafrost Surface-atmosphere interaction.

Interaction of the atmosphere with the interplanetary medium.

Basically the usual stuff. Life. Water. Origin. Relation to earth.