Historically, only 33% of Mars lander missions have succeeded, and this landing was particularly complicated.
The half-billion-dollar Phoenix Mars Lander touched down on the planet Sunday night to begin at least three months of experiments.
There have been three successful Mars lander missions, the Viking 1 and Viking 2 in 1976, and the Pathfinder in 1997.
CNN: Mars Pathfinder enlisted in search for lost Polar Lander
Lim admits that the recent loss of both the Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter may have affected favourable public opinion, which is what the project needs most if the dream of seeing astronauts on the Red Planet is ever to be realised.
No one knows what went wrong with Mars Polar Lander and scientists still hope for a miracle.
America's Mars Polar Lander was supposed to touch down on 3 December, 1999.
On December 3rd 1999, a spacecraft called Mars Polar Lander (MPL) was supposed to touch down near the red planet's southern pole.
The board took a close look at Mars Polar Lander to ensure that it would not encounter unexpected difficulties of its own.
Besides, the Mars Polar Lander came to grief with that system.
One result was that an unlaunched craft similar to Mars Polar Lander was tucked away in a clean room while the agency had a rethink.
Nasa has reacted angrily to the allegation that it knew the Mars Polar Lander (MPL) mission would fail because of a design flaw in the craft's braking thrusters.
Meanwhile, there have also been concerns over Mars Polar Lander.
Nasa spokesman Don Savage said they were not clear about what caused the Mars Polar Lander to disappear as it approached the Martian surface and rejected the earlier claims of a cover-up.
"Before, we could hardly make out dunes there, " said Rich Zurek, project scientist for the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander, set to arrive at the planet in September and December, respectively.
They show one of the legs of an American craft called Mars Phoenix Lander which touched down near the planet's north pole on May 25th 2008 and operated until it was disabled by the gathering winter in November.
He said that after flight controllers at Lockheed Martin had performed a fourth flight correction manoeuvre a few days before the lander reached Mars, scientists realised they were drifting west and toward the huge crater.
Europe entered the Mars race in 2003 with the Mars Express Orbiter and the Beagle 2 lander.
Mars Express is still operating, but the lander never communicated from the surface.
The first wheeled vehicle to land on Mars was during NASA's 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission, which consisted of a stationary lander and a surface rover called Sojourner.
When we come back we're going to switch gears again and talk about the 30th anniversary of the Martian lander, the Viking, landing on Mars 30 years ago this week.
Despite repeated attempts at contact, including with Mars Express, no trace of the British-built lander can be found.
Sol 1, as the days are known on Mars, was a busy time for the three-legged lander, which set down Sunday in relatively flat terrain cut by polygon-shaped fissures.
So far the excellent performance of Mars Express has been somewhat overshadowed by the loss of its lander Beagle 2, which should have touched down on the planet on Christmas Day.
"This analysis suggests that it is not very likely that the December 1999 Polar Lander will be found, " the Web site for the Mars Orbiter Camera concluded.
CNN: Mars Pathfinder enlisted in search for lost Polar Lander
Similar plaques with signatures - including those of the sitting president and vice-president -- adorn the lander platforms for NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on Mars in January of 2004.
"The circumstantial evidence indicates that the signals came from Mars, and if that is the case there is a good chance they came from the Lander, " he added.
CNN: Technology - Will quiet Mars lander talk to Dutch radar dishes?
After weeks of fruitless attempts to raise the lander by radio, JPL mission controllers appeared resigned to their second major failure on a Mars mission in three months, following the September loss of the Mars Climate Observer.
CNN: Technology - Will quiet Mars lander talk to Dutch radar dishes?
That clever piece of engineering was a tiny lander that was carried to the Red Planet in 2003 on board the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter.
When the Viking lander 1 landed on July 20, 1976, it sent back the first pictures from the surface of Mars.
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