MYSTERY shrouds the fate of a spacecraft that was partly built in Oxfordshire after it fell silent on its way to Mars.

The Schiaparelli lander was due to touch down on the rocky planet yesterday evening, but it lost contact with Earth after its data transmission suddenly cut off.

The probe was part of the ExoMars mission launched by the European Space Agency, based in Harwell near Didcot, and split from its mothership the Trace Gas Orbiter which successfully began circling the red planet as planned.

ESA director general Jan Worner said this morning: "The very good news is that the TGA is very successfully inserted into orbit.

"I'm happy. I think it is a big success."

He stressed it was merely a test run for the 2020 ExoMars Rover mission, which will see a device sent into space to roam the planet for signs of life.

Earlier this week one of the project's scientists, Abingdon father-of-two Manish Patel, stressed that he hoped the mission would go to plan. 

He built a piece of the spacecraft called the Nomad, which uses sunlight to pick up data.

The ESA's other mission to Mars in 2003 also ended in the Beagle 2 spacecraft losing signal with Earth, and it was not rediscovered until last year.