Toby Jones and Emily Watson wrap Mars Express, the story of Britain's lost Mars probe

Bafta-winning actors Toby Jones and Emily Watson have finished work on a film about the scientist behind Britain's first spacecraft to land on Mars.

Mars Express, directed by Mackenzie Crook, sees Jones play Colin Pillinger, with Watson as his wife Judith. The couple developed the unmanned Beagle 2 probe to search for life on Mars while Pillinger was a professor of planetary sciences at the Open University in Milton Keynes.

Beagle 2 was due to land on 25 December 2003 but never sent a signal to confirm it had arrived. It was considered a failure for years, until Nasa images in January 2015 showed it had reached the surface safely. Pillinger had died eight months earlier, believing it had not landed.

Crook, known for The Office and Pirates of the Caribbean, is directing his first feature film. He previously worked with Jones on the Bafta-winning comedy Detectorists, and called the project "a complete honour".

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