Filed under
failure
11 milestones, in chronological order.
- October 1960 – March 1963First Contact
Five Soviet probes try for Mars and all five fail
Between 1960 and 1962 the Soviet Union launched five probes at Mars. Four never escaped Earth; the fifth, Mars 1, fell silent 106 million kilometres out.
- 27 November and 2 December 1971First Contact
Mars 3 lands, transmits for 20 seconds, and stops
Mars 2's lander crashed and became the first human object on the surface. Mars 3 touched down intact, sent 20 seconds of signal, and went silent for good.
- 21 July 1973 – 12 March 1974First Contact
The Soviet 1973 armada fails four different ways
Four spacecraft launched in 19 days. Mars 4 flew past at 1,844 km, Mars 5 leaked after nine days, Mars 6 died at touchdown, and Mars 7 missed the planet by 1,300 km.
- July 1988 – March 1989The Rover Decades
The Soviet Union loses both Phobos probes
Phobos 1 died in September 1988 to a flawed command sequence. Phobos 2 reached Mars orbit and failed in March 1989, weeks before dropping its landers.
- 23 September and 3 December 1999The Rover Decades
Two spacecraft lost at Mars in ten weeks
Climate Orbiter flew to 57 km altitude instead of 226 because two teams used different units. Ten weeks later Polar Lander probably shut its engines off 40 metres up.
- 14 December 2003The Rover Decades
Nozomi takes five years to reach Mars, then flies past
Japan's first interplanetary probe lost the fuel to stop at Mars to a malfunctioning valve in 1998. ISAS flew it five more years anyway, then watched it coast past at 1,000 km.
- 25 December 2003The Rover Decades
Europe arrives at Mars; Beagle 2 does not call home
Mars Express slid into orbit on Christmas morning. Beagle 2, released six days earlier, went silent — and was found in 2015 on the ground, partly unfolded.
- 19 October 2016Follow the Water
Europe makes orbit and loses Schiaparelli
One second of saturated gyro data convinced a lander it was already underground. It cut its parachute at 3.7 km and hit Mars at 540 km/h.
- 10 June 2018 – 13 February 2019Follow the Water
A planet-wide dust storm finishes Opportunity
A dust cloud spotted on 30 May 2018 grew to cover Mars and blacked out the sky over a rover that had driven 45 km on a 90-day warranty.
- 19 April 2021 – 18 January 2024The Present Push
Ingenuity flies, then breaks its blades on a dune
A 1.8 kg helicopter hovered three metres above Jezero for forty seconds. Seventy-two flights later, featureless sand confused its navigation camera and damaged all four blades.
- 23 January 2026The Present Push
Mars Sample Return runs out of money
Ten sealed tubes have lain in the dust at Three Forks since January 2023, waiting for a retrieval mission that Congress declined to fund three years later.