How each program got there
The Soviet Union and Russia
The Soviet Union flew the most Mars missions after the United States and lost most of them. Its record includes Mars 3's lander, which touched down on December 2, 1971 and transmitted for only a few seconds. Four 1973 missions each returned part of what they were built for. After 1973 the program had one partial result, Phobos 2, and no full success. Mars 96 failed to leave Earth orbit on November 16, 1996, and Phobos-Grunt on November 8, 2011.
The United States
The United States has the most full successes, from Mariner 4's flyby through Mariner 9's first orbit on November 14, 1971 and Viking 1's landing on July 20, 1976. Pathfinder landed on July 4, 1997, and Phoenix on May 25, 2008. Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity and Perseverance followed. NASA says Curiosity found evidence of a past environment suited to supporting microbial life within the first eight months of a 23-month prime mission. The Ingenuity helicopter flew 72 times before its final flight on January 18, 2024.
Europe
The European Space Agency's Mars Express is in the table as a success. Its passenger, Beagle 2, isn't, and because it was British it appears under the United Kingdom. ESA's ExoMars 2016, run with Russia, is a partial: the orbiter worked and the Schiaparelli lander didn't.
India, the UAE and China
India's Mars Orbiter Mission entered orbit on September 24, 2014 in its first attempt. ISRO gives its cost as about 450 crore rupees, about 80 million US dollars. The UAE's Hope followed on February 9, 2021, and the UAE's space center calls it the first Arab country and the fifth overall to reach Mars. China's Tianwen-1 entered Mars orbit on February 10, 2021 and landed its rover Zhurong in Utopia Planitia on May 14, 2021. By May 2022 the rover had worked 347 Martian days and driven 1,921 meters. It then went into hibernation and hasn't been confirmed awake.
The table
| Program | Missions | Success | Partial | Failure | First success or partial (launched) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 26 | 18 | 1 | 6 | 1964 (Mariner 4) |
| Soviet Union / Russia | 19 | 0 | 6 | 13 | 1971 (Mars 2) |
| Europe (ESA) | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2003 (Mars Express) |
| China | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2020 (Tianwen-1) |
| India | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2013 (Mars Orbiter Mission) |
| United Arab Emirates | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2020 (Emirates Mars Mission) |
| Japan | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | None yet |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | None yet |
"First" here means the first mission launched that succeeded or partly succeeded, not the first to arrive. Two missions can launch in one order and arrive in the other.
Who has done the most
The bars count successes plus partial successes. The United States has flown the most missions, with 26, and the Soviet Union / Russia is next with 19, of which 15 flew before 1975.
Joint and shared missions
We credit each mission to the program that led it. ExoMars 2016 was run by Europe with Russia as a partner, so it's listed under Europe. Japan's Nozomi flew past Mars without entering orbit, and the United Kingdom's Beagle 2 landed but never called home.
The ones still waiting
Japan and the United Kingdom have launched toward Mars without a success so far. Japan's Nozomi had propulsion, power and communications problems and never entered orbit in 1998. The United Kingdom's Beagle 2 landed but didn't fully deploy. Both are on the failures list.
What "reached Mars" covers
The table credits a program once one of its missions fully or partly succeeded. That's a loose bar. A flyby counts, an orbit counts, and so does a landing that returned a little science. The steps are different jobs. Reaching orbit is one, landing is another and driving a rover is a third, and only some programs have done all three.
Distance adds its own difficulty. The planet is far enough that even radio signals take minutes, and the travel time to Mars for a spacecraft is measured in months. What they arrive to is described on the Mars page.
The order they arrived
Sort the programs by the launch date of their first success or partial and the order is the United States in 1964, the Soviet Union / Russia in 1971, Europe (ESA) in 2003, India in 2013, the United Arab Emirates in 2020 and China in 2020. Two missions can launch in one order and arrive in the other, so this is a list of launches, not of arrivals. What it does show is how long the first club stayed small: for decades only two programs were in it.
Who has put something on the surface
China, Europe (ESA), the Soviet Union / Russia and the United States have had a lander or rover mission that fully or partly succeeded. India and the United Arab Emirates have a success or partial only from orbiters or flybys. Landing is where the gap between programs is widest, which fits the pattern on the success rate page.
The American landers
NASA's stationary landers show how far the craft have come. Viking 1 set down on July 20, 1976 and Viking 2 on September 3, 1976, about 6,460 kilometers away on Utopia Planitia. Viking 2's lander stopped operating in April 1980. Phoenix landed on May 25, 2008, farther north than any earlier spacecraft, and verified water ice under the surface. Its last signal arrived on November 2, 2008, as winter set in. InSight landed on November 26, 2018, and NASA declared its mission over on December 21, 2022 after dust cut its power. Its seismometer recorded 1,319 marsquakes.
Missions by program
The mission counts, from most to fewest, are the United States 26, the Soviet Union / Russia 19, Europe (ESA) 2, China 2, Japan 1, the United Kingdom 1, India 1 and the United Arab Emirates 1. The tail of the list is short because several programs have launched only one or two Mars missions. The same programs behave differently at the Moon, which the hub page lays out side by side.