Nozomi (Planet B), Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander

1998 was an interesting year when Japan managed to send a craft to break the so far monopoly of Mars exploration of the US and Russia. The Nozomi was the first Japanese Mars orbiter built and was launched on July 4, 1998. However, immediate success had to be postponed when the Nozomi's Mars landing was delayed due to propulsion problems and was forced to orbit round the Sun for some time. It is however, in heliocentric orbit to arrive at Mars in early 2004. Meanwhile, NASA sent the Mars Climate Orbiter on December 11, 1998. Sadly, bad luck struck again when the Mars Climate Orbiter was lost on its arrival to Mars, likely due to failure of NASA's systems engineering team to find and ratify the error which caused the lost of the orbiter. The Mars Polar Lander was launched on January 3, 1999, piggybacking two miniature probes, or Deep Space 2, to Mars. Disappointingly once more, the probes failed to respond to NASA despite the team's attempt to regain communications. With the failure of the probes to respond was the lost of many of the first-of-a-kind instruments and systems that had taken NASA much effort to equip on the two probes.