There was a US (or maybe it was ESA/US) lander that didn’t land right and the next orbiter eventually found the crash site from orbit. This story reminds me of the persistent flap about a Russian craft some years ago which had just managed to make orbit around Mars, turn on its cameras, and saw the (natural) object just in time to record the probe’s own demise. A Russian source said the probe had collided with “something that wasn’t supposed to be there”, an unfortunate turn of phrase which has been saddled on ever since as proof that aliens control Mars.
The first-ever attempt at a Mars mission was by the USSR; Khruschev made a cryptic reference to it in one of his angry speeches, without going into detail, in case the mission failed — which it did. The first close-up photos of Mars (there are just a handful from the mission) date from nearly 50 years ago, a US probe which like others since failed to get to the right spot at the right time, and instead of entering orbit, did a flyby instead. While that aspect was disappointing, the photos took everyone’s breath away.
Probably won’t do that to anyone now, unfortunately, but I remain impressed:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1964-077A
I’m still pretty impressed with the Russian Venus landings.