Mariner 3 goes nowhere

Though successfully launched, NASA’s Mariner 3 – one of a pair of identical robotic probes intended to become the first space probes to fly by Mars – fails to properly deploy, stranded in the nose cone of the rocket that took it into space. Unable to spread its solar panels, Mariner 3 simply never activates and is lost in space. The liftoff of its sister ship, Mariner 4, is still a few weeks away, giving engineers time to prevent the same mishap from occurring again.