An awfully big adventure

2003 looks set to be a good year for Mars buffs. On 27 August, the great desert in the sky will be closer to Earth than it has been for the past 70,000 years, a spectacular, ruddy evening star to which five spacecraft from three continents should be travelling. Three will be planning to land: Beagle 2 from Britain and two American rovers currently bearing the working titles Mars Exploration Rover A and B. The other two, Europe’s Mars Express and Japan’s Nozomi, will be going into orbit alongside Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, the two American probes already…