Despite all of the wonderful information these spectacular missions have given us, we should not lose sight of the fact that many of the mission have been dismal failures, and there is no reason to believe that the future will not hold many additional failures!
There were a few failures by the USA (Mariner 3 and 8) and numerous ones by the USSR (who fared much better with Venus).
Mars 2 – 1971 (USSR) The orbiter beat Mariner 9 to be the first human-made object to orbit Mars. But the severe dust storm prevented it from obtaining images with decent surface detail. The Mars 2 lander likewise became the first human-made object to reach the surface of Mars (it crashed).
Mars 3 Lander – 1971 (USSR) was the first spacecraft to land softly on the surface of Mars. It failed after 110 seconds after transmitting a small portion of a picture. The combined output of images for the Mars 2 & 3 orbiters was 60 picture, compared to the 7,329 by Mariner 9.
Phobos 1 – 1988 (USSR) Goal-
Investigate Mars’ moon Phobos. Lost contact mid-way due to erroneous command
sent by controllers.
Phobos 2 – 1988 (USSR) Some
pictures of mars & Phobos. Then lost orientation due to computer defect,
lost power (solar panels…). You can read about the Phobos missions at the Phobos Home Page or the Phobos project
Information Page of the NSSDC (National Space Science data Center).
Mars
Observer – 1992 (NASA) Some pictures prior
to arrival, but lost upon orbit insertion. Fuel line froze leading to
explosion?
Mars 96
– 1996 (Russia) Huge complex mission with
multiple orbiters & landers. Didn’t even reach Earth orbit.
Nozomi
– 1998 (Japan) Failed to achieve proper
trajectory. 4 years later and added gravity assists by Earth, correction
maneuver in 2003 failed. Project terminated.
Mars
Climate Orbiter – 1998 (NASA) Lost during
orbit insertion due to navigational error. Compare the reason for failure given
at the previous one with the more ‘sanitized version given here.
Miles or kilometers?
Mars Polar Lander
– 1998 (NASA) Lander & 2 Penetrators (Deep
Space 2). Communication lost. Probably crashed when landing rockets were shut
of prematurely. No one knows the fate of the penetrators.
Beagle-2 – 2003 (Open
University, UK), along with Mars Express (ESA) reached Mars successfully.
Beagle-2, a lander, was the first experiments since Viking to look for life,
failed to establish contact after landing. Status unknown