Europe's Mars Express orbiter blasted into a new path around the Red Planet yesterday, a key maneuver that boosted mission controllers' hopes of tracking down the elusive Beagle 2 lander and cleared the way for the mother ship to probe deep beneath the surface with its powerful radar.

　　"Today was a very critical day," flight director Michael McKay said after Mars Express fired its main engine for more than three minutes at about 0800 GMT. The maneuver switched the ship from orbiting over Mars' equator to a new course over its poles, he said.

　　The craft's engine will be fired again on Sunday to slow it down and put it into a lower orbit, positioning it to contact its missing companion, the Beagle, starting on January 7.

　　Mars Express went into orbit around Mars early on Christmas Day - about the same time that the British-built Beagle was supposed to land north of the Martian equator, its impact softened by gas bags and parachutes.

　　But both NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, which heard nothing on its sixth attempt early yesterday, and powerful British and US radio telescopes have failed to pick up its transmissions.

　　Still, controllers remain hopeful that Mars Express will be able to pick up the Beagle's signal when it passes over the landing site at an altitude of 315 kilometers on January 7.

　　"The probability of communications (with Mars Express) is 100 times higher than having Mars Odyssey try," mission control spokesman Bernhard von Weyhe said.