Mars Missions: A Pictorial History

This chart shows the history of Mars missions in a pictorial manner easy to understand, and which facilitates appreciation of the historical progress and treds.



I saw this chart on an io9 page, it's due to IEE's special issue on Mars exploration issues. Click on the image for sharper resolution.

Among other observations, the US missions had a much larger success rate than the Soviet/Russian missions, and the success rate has risen in recent times. We're also seeing the emergence of new players. Japan in 1998 (though their Nozomi mission failed), the EU in 2003 and 2004, with one future mission (expected: 2016), and there's a joint Chinese-Russian mission called Phobos-Grunt/Yinghuo-1 expected for launch later this year according to the graphic, and in 2011 according to Wikipedia.

As friends now, I am a believer in the long-term good of such exploration, and eventually, colonization.