Red Planet Triumphs and Defeats: A History of Mars Missions

On March 14, Europe and Russia are scheduled to launch the first phase of the two-part ExoMars program toward the Red Planet. The upcoming ExoMars launch comes just a few years after the failed Russian-Chinese Fobos-Grunt mission, which lifted off in November 2011 but never made it beyond Earth orbit. Since 1960, more than half of all attempted Mars missions have failed.