Mars missions: Successes and failures

NEW DELHI (AP) — Getting a spacecraft to orbit Mars is a complex mission that few countries have attempted, and even fewer have achieved.

The former Soviet Union made the world’s first attempt in 1960, but the satellite didn’t get far from Earth. The United States had the first successful mission four years later, when a flyby satellite, Mariner 4, beamed 21 images of the red planet’s surface back to Earth.