The project manager for the Guinevere Mission is Professor Daniel Llewellyn. Daniel studied at Swansea University, gaining a Masters in Areology. The UK’s foremost expert on Mars, Daniel (or Danny as he likes to be known) is seen by many as one of the architects of Britain’s re-entry into the space race. In 2001, after three years working at NASA, he was invited to join the British Rocket Group.

He soon assembled a team of highly-skilled professionals who, together with the British Government, engineered Guinevere One. He says the only thing that fascinates him more than the red planet is his five-year-old daughter, Sian. 'Never mind what goes on in space,' he jokes, 'I’d like to know what’s going on inside her head!' Danny also enjoys scuba-diving and Little Britain.

Project: Guinevere

On 1 August 2003, the British Rocket Group commenced work on Guinevere One. In a statement released by the Government it was announced that, “the Space Probe would be the greatest feat of British engineering since Stephenson’s original Rocket.”

Guinevere was named by its project manager, Danny Llewellyn. “I’m an old romantic at heart,” he explained on a 2005 edition of The Sky At Night. “As a Welshman, I love the old Arthurian legends and enjoyed naming our probe after a woman with such a tangled history as good old ‘Gwen the Great’! Trust me, after my own dealings with the convoluted bureaucracy of the British Government, the original Guinevere had it easy!"

On 31 October 2006, the Probe was launched into the Earth’s atmosphere and, over the next few weeks, traversed the gulf of space towards Mars.

This month, after completing a single orbit, she’s due to land on Mars and on Christmas Day itself Guinevere will begin broadcasting live images from the planet’s surface. A number of highly-specialised robots will leave the Probe to perform mineral and atmospheric surveys. After collating and analysing this data, the British Rocket Group aim to have completed the most thorough survey of the red planet yet.

As well as being a vessel for scientific analysis, the Guinevere Probe contains a number of interesting items. As Professor Llewellyn explains: “It’s become standard practice that all space missions include objects that could help us communicate with other species. Guinevere is no different.”

The Probe contains a data plaque illustrated with male and female figures as well as a diagram of the solar system. Also on board are discs featuring natural sounds (such as whale and bird song), spoken greetings in 120 languages, examples of various forms of international music, a copy of the Mappa Mundi and the latest edition of the London A-Z. Chemical samples of life’s building blocks are also held in the Probe’s internal capsule.

And, for the first time the public can be involved...