By Jonathan Amos BBC News Online science staff

Beagle will be jettisoned several days before reaching the planet

The restraining bolts that kept it securely clamped down to the main Mars Express probe during blast-off have been released successfully.

Flight engineers at Esoc, the European Space Agency's (Esa) satellite control centre, in Darmstadt, Germany, co-ordinated the 30-minute-long procedure, beginning at 0910 BST (0810 GMT) on Thursday.

They will soon instruct the main probe to fire its engine to correct the trajectory for Mars.

News that the three restraining bolts had been freed was greeted with relief by Beagle's chief scientist, Professor Colin Pillinger.

Job well done

"This is another box ticked and the people at Esa are a little bit more relaxed than they were before. There were four things holding us on to Mars Express and now there is only one," he said.

Pillinger: A good start to the mission

"We got information back from sensors that show Beagle has cooled down at the expected rate, which shows all the insulation is working properly; the batteries have started to switch on to keep us warm.

"We're now in the hands of the Mars Express flight engineers who must do a burn shortly to put us on the correct path to the planet."

Esa and Russian space officials were delighted with the way the lift-off of Mars Express and Beagle proceeded.

The Soyuz-Fregat launcher did its job superbly and only a slight modification to the trajectory is required to correct the flight path of Mars Express.

Roving geologist

Telemetry shows the main probe is pointing correctly towards the Sun and has deployed its solar panels, and all its on-board systems are operating faultlessly.

After the engine burn, Mars Express will travel away from Earth at a speed exceeding 30 kilometres per second. Its 400-million-kilometre journey will take six months.

The launch could not have gone better

Once all payload operations have been checked out, the probe will be largely deactivated. During this period, the spacecraft will contact Earth only once a day. A mid-journey correction of its trajectory is scheduled for September.

On 19 December, Mars Express should release Beagle for a Christmas Day landing. The main probe will then manoeuvre itself into a highly elliptical polar orbit around the Red Planet.

The Americans confirmed on Wednesday they would be launching the first of their Mars Exploration Rovers on Sunday. The US space agency (Nasa) is sending two identical rovers to the planet to study Martian geology.