The six-month journey to Mars by the spacecraft Beagle 2 ended early Christmas morning, when it was scheduled to touchdown on the planet's surface at 2:54 a.m. GMT (9:54 p.m. EST).

The BBC reported scientists failed to pick up an expected signal from the spacecraft at 6:30 a.m. GMT (1:30 a.m. EST), telling them it has landed safely on Mars. The signal was to have been relayed by the U.S. space agency's Odyssey orbiter as it flew over the Beagle landing site.

The giant Jodrell Bank telescope will come on line at about 10 p.m. GMT (5 p.m. EST) to listen for signals.

If that option fails, NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft will have a daily chance to pick up the signal until Jan. 3, when Europe's Mars Express craft -- the Beagle's mother ship now orbiting the red planet -- begins listening for its signals.

The 70-pound lander set down in a broad, flat plain near the Martian equator called Isidis Planitia, the site of a huge former impact crater that scientists think might have been filled with water at one time.

The Beagle 2 mission team reported that Colin Pillinger, the lander's lead scientist, said the absence of a signal does not mean the probe had been damaged during its descent. There were a number of possible explanations, he said, including the Beagle 2 antenna was not pointing in the direction of Mars Odyssey.