Emblazoned with logos that may be seen by billions of people back home, the little lander Beagle 2 will be the main payload aboard an ambitious European Space Agency (ESA) mission to see if there is life on Mars.

In doing so, it will break with precedent in pure-science projects in space -- an area that by tradition is funded only by governments on account of the huge costs incurred and the often limited interest for the public.

The 30-kilo (66-pound) rover will mark the first commercial backing for an interplanetary mission, and sources predict that if it succeeds, the sponsorship door will be flung open for other big-ticket space projects.

Beagle 2's mother ship will be Mars Express, an orbiter scheduled to be launched by the European consortium in 2003.

Named after the ship in which the evolutionist Charles Darwin voyaged around the world in the 1830s, the probe will be sent down to the Martian surface, where it will use a drill and remote-controlled "mole" to dig out soil samples.

The samples will then be analysed aboard the lander to determine their mineral makeup, age and water content.

Matthew Patten, chief executive of the British firm MetC Saatchi Sponsorship, told AFP his firm had found "three very interested parties" willing to sponsor Beagle 2.

He refused to identify the firms until the deal was sealed, but said they were "sizeable and international" and in sectors linked with high technology or transport.

"We're looking for one title sponsor and up to five partner sponsors," he said.

The title sponsor will get its name associated with the project -- "'the XYZ Beagle 2 Mission to Mars,' in the same way that you say 'the Coca-Cola Cup' in football," he said.

Advertising will be sold at strategic points on the lander, its parachutes and airbags, and the logos will also feature on computer simulations that will appear on television.

"This kind of thing has never been done before," Patten enthused. "The (television) syndication and distribution will be worldwide. It's going to be most extraordinary."

The goal is to find 10 million pounds (16 million dollars) towards Beagle 2's costs of around 25-30 million pounds, Patten said. The British government is contributing around eight million of the remainder, according to the Mars Express website.

ESA spokesman Franco Bonacina said that to his knowledge it was the first time that the agency, a consortium funded by national governments, will include a sponsored component on one of its missions.

The sponsorship was purely a matter for the British companies which were providing Beagle 2, and did not apply to the Mars Express mission of which the lander was only a part, he stressed.

But he added that ESA did not bar sponsorship and in fact was looking at the potential of "future partnerships" with industry.

Piloting Beagle 2 is Colin Pillinger, a professor at Britain's Open University, which is one of the scheme's four partners, alongside Leicester University and the companies Matra Marconi Space and Martin Baker Aircraft.

Without sponsorship, Beagle 2 would have remained on the drawing board, Pillinger said.

"We couldn't do it without commercial sponsorship," he said. "If we hadn't gone down this route, there would have been no money for the project."

Not only would science benefit, public awareness in space would also get a boost, he argued.

"It's breaking new ground, we've shown that it's possible, we've shown that we can build this up," he said. "We've shown that the money is potentially there from advertising and sponsorship."

There would be no corporate influence over Beagle 2's work, and the advertising would be conducted "with decorum," said Pillinger.

But he admitted that "individual scientists" in ESA were worried about the risk of creeping commercialism in pure-science projects.

"There are traditionalists, shall we say, but on the other hand there are people who say that this is a fact of life for the future -- a public/private partnership in space."

Copyright 1999 AFP. All rights reserved. The material on this page is provided by AFP and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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