Ananova:

An inquiry into the doomed Beagle 2 Mars probe blames management and a lack of testing for the failure of the mission.

Beagle 2 was to land on Mars last Christmas Day to look for life, but all contact with it was lost.

Now a report by the European Space Agency and British National Space Centre claims too high a level of risk was taken in building and delivering the probe to an almost impossible deadline.

The report has not been able to pinpoint exactly why the probe failed.

Investigators only had one image of Beagle 2 leaving Mars Express to work on.

Beagle 2 also had no communication during the crucial atmospheric entry and landing, unlike the successful US Mars landers, which cost ten times as much.

But the report makes 19 recommendations about the mission and the lessons that can be learned from it.

It says the project's management lacked focus and that at first it was inadequately funded, and that there was too little time for testing.