c. The Associated Press

LONDON (AP) - A British-built craft designed to scour the surface of Mars for signs of life is scheduled to land on the planet on Christmas Day, scientists said Tuesday. The Beagle 2 lander is traveling aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express craft, launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on June 2. Scientists told journalists at a briefing Tuesday that the unmanned spacecraft was about 13 million miles from Mars and expected to reach the planet in mid-December.

On Dec. 19, the craft will eject the Beagle 2 landing module - a 132-pound shell shaped like an oversized wok and packed with scientific instruments. If all goes to plan, it will parachute to the surface on Dec. 25, flip open and begin conducting experiments. Mars Explorer will orbit the planet for at least one Martian year, which is 687 Earth days. Its antenna will receive data from Beagle 2 and the orbiter's own instruments and beam it to Earth.

Scientists were ``98 percent confident'' all would go well, said John Reddy, the project's chief electrical systems engineer. Scientists believe Mars once had water and appropriate conditions for life but lost it billions of years ago, possibly after being hit by asteroids. It is believed that water might still exist on Mars as underground ice.

Previous attempts to find signs of life have been inconclusive. Of 34 unmanned American, Soviet and Russian missions to Mars since 1960, two-thirds ended in failure. In 1976, twin U.S. Viking landers searched for life but sent back inconclusive results. Beagle 2 - named for the ship that carried naturalist Charles Darwin on his voyage of discovery in the 1830s - has ambitious scientific aims: It will collect soil and rock samples, dig into Mars to search for organic materials, and check the atmosphere for traces of methane produced by living organisms. The mission also will map the planet and use powerful radar to probe below the surface for evidence of water.

Mars Explorer is not the only mission heading to the red planet. Two American Mars rover craft are due to arrive in January, and Japan's trouble-plagued Nozomi orbiter, launched in 1998, continues on its way despite technical problems. Mars Explorer, which cost about $345 million, is an attempt to demonstrate that Europe can have an effective - and relatively inexpensive - space exploration program.

Mars Express:

www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/Mars-Express/SEMTERWLDMD-0.html

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