Applications for public funding for the doomed Beagle 2 Mars lander neglected to highlight the dangers of the mission failing, according to a new report.Some £22.5 million of Government money was put into the innovative craft, which is believed to have crash-landed on the surface of Mars on Christmas Day 2003.The danger that the Beagle's protective airbags would fail at the point of impact had been identified early in the project and work was done to reduce the risk, the report by public spending watchdog the National Audit Office found.But when the British National Space Centre Partnership put in a bid for funds to the Department of Trade and Industry and the Government's Office of Science and Technology, it emphasised the potential benefits of the project rather than the risk of failure, the NAO report said."

In the written submissions appraising the case for supporting the project, BNSC did not discuss the material risks to success alongside the costs and benefits," the report said."The risks, and steps taken to mitigate these risks, which had been fully considered, should have been covered in the formal appraisal submissions."The report found that the cost of Beagle 2 rose from an estimated £27 million when Professor Colin Pillinger first applied for Government backing in 1997 to a final total of £44 million.

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