Viking spacecraft touch down, take pictures and sift soil. Probe to a Martian moon fails. Mars Observer spacecraft is lost. Very successful Mars Pathfinder mission. Mars Global Surveyor begins amassing pictures.
Japan launches a tiny Mars probe.
Mars Climate Observer and, probably, Mars Polar Lander lost. The images clearly showed craters and atmospheric haze around the limb of Mars. The planet appeared to be an ancient Moon-like world and, at a stroke, hopes that it might harbour life were crushed. The Soviets also tried to reach Mars in 1964 but again lost contact with their Zond probe. It was five years later, in 1969, when spaceprobes were next sent out towards the Red Planet.