ESA does a Beagle 2

Beagle 2 was the brain child of the late Professor Colin Pillinger of the Open University. It took a ride to Mars with the successful Mars Express mission in 2003 and all contact was lost during the descent. It was finally spotted in January 2015, when images from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter appeared to show that half of the solar panels had failed to deploy and they had blocked the communications antenna.
    The European Space Agency sent a probe called Schiaparaelli to Mars along with the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter with the object of testing the ESA landing system. Contact was lost with the probe yesterday during the descent to the surface, which means that ESA does not have something as effective as NASA’s bouncing ball technique for the vital last bit.