Now the missing Mars robot Beagle 2 has been found on the surface of the red planet and it's said to be intact. 11 years ago the European Space Agency attempted to send the probe to Mars in search of signs of life, but it vanished during an attempted landing on Christmas Day back in 2003. Well our Global Science correspondent Rebecca Morel is at the Royal Society in Central London, Rebecca. Yes well we've just been hearing in the press conference that this mystery about what happens at Beagle 2 which has been going on for more than 10 years has finally been solved. Now Beagle 2 if you remember was a British mission, the probe itself was put together for not very much money and it was built very very quickly indeed. And it was supposed to land on the red planet on Christmas Day on 2003, but there was no signal received. It was an agonizing wait for the scientists involved in this and several months later the mission was declared a failure. Now ever since then people have been wondering what happened to Beagle 2. There was speculation that it might have crashed when it entered when it landed on the surface of Mars and got destroyed in the process, but no one really knew. Now today we have found out what happened and it looks like the mission was tantalisingly close to being a success because Beagle 2 has been found intact on the surface of Mars. It looked like it landed safely. However the solar panels that were supposed to deploy to open up to allow it to send its radio signal back didn't do that. Now it's a day tinged with sadness because Colin Pillinger, the scientist who was really the driving force behind this mission sadly passed away last year. So he wasn't here today to see what happened, but I'm joined by his daughter, Shuzanna, who was in the press conference watching what happened. How does it feel to have finally found out what happened to Beagle 2? This is so exciting for the family and all the scientists and engineers involved and all of my dad's colleagues in the room. This is something that has been in our family for so many years now since the first thought of Beagle 2 in about 1997. It's wonderful to finally find out what happened and also to prove that it didn't crash on landing. What do you think your dad would have thought about this? He would have been so pleased that this shows yet another success of Beagle 2 mission. His critics say that it was a failure. He was always adamant that this by no means was a failure. There were so many successes in this mission and this proves yet another one that Beagle 2 successfully landed on the surface of Mars. It's fairly frustrating though that it got so close to working. It was so nearly there, it was just the solar panels which didn't come out. Indeed, and not even that, several of the solar panels they do think unfolded. So maybe it was the last solar panel and unfortunately that prevents Beagle 2 transmitting back to Earth so that we could have heard the blur call sign for instance that everybody was waiting for on Christmas Day. It is just frustrating that it was so close but this shows that this can't be the last British mission to Mars. We have to go back again and we have to find out what we can do to improve and to send more missions. Well she's Anna, thank you very much. So a real lasting legacy from this mission, not only the technology from Beagle 2 which has been used in current missions today. The Rosetta mission for example last year and future missions to Mars by the European Space Agency but also in terms of inspiring people around the world. That's really what Professor Colin Pillenger did. He got people excited about science and we found out today it wasn't a failure. It came incredibly close so a mix of emotions here at the Royal Society. Rebecca, thank you very much. Rebecca Morrell there in Central London. Well the headlines are coming up on the BBC News Channel and a moment we say goodbye to viewers on BBC 2 but now the weather from staff.