# The tragedies and failures of space exploration

The Apollo 1 fire, the Challenger and Columbia disasters, the Vanguard that exploded on the pad and the probes that never made it to Mars: the tragedies and failures etched into the history of spaceflight. What did we learn from them?

- 0 votes · 14 items
- Jun 20, 2026 · Daiki Watanabe
- https://even.best/en/l/4019/the-tragedies-and-failures-of-space-exploration

## Top 14

1. **Vanguard TV3 (1957)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — It rose about a metre, lost thrust and exploded on the pad.
2. **The Nedelin catastrophe (1960)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — A rocket exploded at a Soviet launch site, killing more than 100 people.
3. **Apollo 1 (1967)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — A fire during a ground test killed three astronauts.
4. **Soyuz 1 (1967)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The parachutes failed and cosmonaut Komarov was killed.
5. **The N1 rocket (1969)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Soviet moon rocket failed on all four launches.
6. **Apollo 13 (1970)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — An oxygen tank exploded, but all three came home safely: a "successful failure".
7. **Soyuz 11 (1971)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Depressurisation during re-entry killed three cosmonauts.
8. **Mars 2 (1971)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The first human-made object to reach Mars, but it crashed on landing.
9. **Challenger (1986)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — It broke apart 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven crew.
10. **Mars Polar Lander (1999)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Contact was lost just before landing.
11. **Columbia (2003)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — It broke up on re-entry, killing seven.
12. **Beagle 2 (2003)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — It landed but its solar panels did not unfold, so it could not communicate.
13. **Phobos-Grunt (2011)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Its engines failed to fire and it never left Earth orbit.
14. **Schiaparelli (2016)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Conflicting data made it crash into the Martian surface.

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