Apparently, NASA is celebrating the one year operation of the fated 90-day life of “Spirit”, launched (or arrived?) Jan 3 2004. “Opportunity” followed six months later.
But what about the first two rovers? The first was “Sojourner”, and the ill-fated second rover was ???. I’ve googled, but did not find mention of the lost rover. Do you recall its name? And, what its fate was? IIRC, a simple conversion factor was misapplied, or units were mixed in some calc?
I think the mission you’re thinking of can be found here. It looks like no rover was aboard, just a stationary lander and a probe designed to penetrate the surface to get data on water and thermal conditions.
Don’t recall any rovers missions failing before.
The Russians lost a lander due to a hardcoded landing date, forcing them to land in a massive duststorm (that was ages ago, before they concentrated on Venus)…
The ESA’s small station Beagle was lost, potentially due to miscalculated atmospheric density resulting in parachute failure, but perhaps something else.
IIRC, the Mars Polar Lander is understood to have misdetected the final extension of the landing gear as contact and shut the landing rockets off a few meters too early.
You might be thinking of the Mars Climate Orbiter, a purely orbital mission that failed after an aerobraking manoever went way too low when units used by the manufacturing contractors were left unspecified. (See link).
There was one other mission a few years back where the radio was turned off during fuel tank pressurization and contact never regained, but I forget the name, and am only slightly sure it was headed to Mars.
That was Mars Observer. It was a billion dollar failed mission that led to NASA’s “Faster, Cheaper, Better” mantra of the '90s (of which the following two missions to Mars, Surveyor and Pathfinder/Sojourner were among the few bright points). The exact cause will likely forever remain a mystery, the review boards came up with six scenarios.