Firsts and Final Fates: Nine Spacecraft That Tried Something New

Zond 5 flew around the Moon in September 1968 and became the first Moon mission to carry living creatures and bring them back safely, with two Russian tortoises, fruit fly eggs and plants aboard.

Launched on 19 May 1971, Mars 2 paired an orbiter with a lander, and that lander became the first human-made object to reach the surface of Mars, though it crashed rather than landing softly.

Phobos 1 launched in July 1988 with its twin Phobos 2 and was lost on 28 August 1988 after a mistyped ground command deactivated crucial systems onboard.

NASA Lunar Prospector orbited the Moon for about nineteen months from a low polar orbit, mapping hydrogen deposits, and ended on 31 July 1999 when controllers deliberately crashed it into a crater near the south pole.

Launched on 20 May 2010 by JAXA, IKAROS was the first spacecraft to successfully demonstrate solar sail technology in interplanetary space, and its operation was officially ended on 15 May 2025.

The ESA and Roscosmos orbiter launched in March 2016 to study methane and other trace gases in the Martian atmosphere, and it has been orbiting Mars since 19 October 2016.

Yutu-2 made the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon on 3 January 2019 and in November 2019 passed the lunar longevity record of 321 Earth days held by Lunokhod 1.

Zhurong landed in Utopia Planitia on 14 May 2021, making China the second nation to land and operate a rover on Mars, and it entered planned hibernation on 18 May 2022 but contact was never restored.

Pragyan rode with the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3, which launched on 14 July 2023 and touched down near the lunar south pole on 23 August 2023, replacing the equivalents lost when Chandrayaan-2 crashed on landing in 2019.