All Missions

Roscosmos

Mars 96 (Mars-8)

Roscosmos's ambitious Mars 96 mission, designed to study Mars's evolution and physics through an orbiter, two surface stations, and two penetrators, failed a few hours after launch due to a restart failure of the Proton-K rocket's fourth upper stage.

NASA

Mars Global Surveyor (MGS)

Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), launched by NASA in November 1996, was a pioneering orbital mission that revolutionized our understanding of Mars. After a long aerobraking phase, it globally mapped the surface, studied mineralogy, analyzed the remnant magnetic field, and demonstrated the past presence of abundant liquid water.

NASA

Mars Observer

Mars Observer (1992) was an ambitious NASA orbiter designed to conduct a global study of Mars' mineralogy, atmosphere, and magnetic field. After a successful interplanetary cruise phase of nearly a year, the spacecraft suddenly went silent on August 21, 1993, three days before orbital insertion, due to a catastrophic failure in its propulsion system.

Roscosmos

Phobos 2

Phobos 2 was a Soviet orbiter launched in July 1988 with the objective of studying the interplanetary environment, Mars, and the satellite Phobos, incorporating plans to deploy landers. After reaching Martian orbit in late January 1989, the mission gathered valuable scientific data and detailed images until contact was lost on March 27, 1989 due to a critical failure.

Roscosmos

Phobos 1

Phobos 1 was an ambitious Soviet mission designed to study Mars and its moon Phobos using an orbiter and a lander. Launched in July 1988, the probe collected heliosismic and gamma-ray data during the cruise phase, but was prematurely lost in September following a telecommand error that deactivated its attitude control.

NASA

Viking 2 Orbiter

Part of Viking 2

The Viking 2 Orbiter was inserted into Mars orbit on August 7, 1976. After deploying its lander, it operated independently conducting global, climatic, and atmospheric mapping. Its milestones include a close flyby of the moon Deimos and photographic confirmation of water ice at the north polar cap. The mission concluded on July 25, 1978, following a leak in its propulsion system.

NASA

Viking 1 (Orbiter)

Part of Viking 1

NASA's Viking 1 mission, launched in 1975, was a historic milestone. Comprising an orbiter and a lander, it achieved the first successful, long-duration US landing on Mars on July 20, 1976. While the orbiter mapped the planet, revealing river valleys, the lander conducted the first in-situ experiments to search for life, yielding ambiguous results that redefined Martian exploration.

OKB-1

Mars 7

Launched on August 9, 1973, with the objective of performing a soft landing. Due to the degradation of onboard computer chips, the lander separated prematurely (or failed its correction maneuver) on March 9, 1974. The probe missed atmospheric entry and flew past the surface at a distance of 1,300 km, becoming trapped in a useless heliocentric orbit.

OKB-1

Mars 5

Launched by the USSR in 1973, Mars 5 was the only spacecraft of that window (Mars 4, 5, 6, 7) to successfully enter Mars orbit on February 12, 1974. However, a depressurization of the instrument compartment, likely due to a micrometeoroid, caused its failure after only 22 orbits and 16 days of operation, though it managed to return 43 high-quality images and surface data.

OKB-1

Mars 4

Launched by the USSR in 1973 aiming to orbit Mars. Due to an onboard computer failure (chip degradation), the retrorockets failed to fire for orbital insertion. The spacecraft performed an unplanned flyby on February 10, 1974, at 1,844 km, returning images and detecting the night-side ionosphere of the planet for the first time.

NASA

Mariner 9

NASA's Mariner 9 was the first probe to orbit another planet, arriving at Mars in November 1971. Although a global dust storm obscured the surface, the mission waited patiently. As the dust cleared, it revealed a new Mars: discovering Olympus Mons , Valles Marineris , and ancient riverbeds.

OKB-1

Mars 3 (Orbiter)

Part of Mars 3

The USSR's Mars 3 mission (1971) was a historic partial success. Its orbiter functioned, but the lander, despite achieving the first-ever soft landing on Mars, only transmitted for 20 seconds. A massive global dust storm is believed to have caused the failure.