Cosmos 1 Unsuccessful

If you are following what's going on in the space arena, you'll know that Cosmos 1 was the first privately funded space mission as well as the first ever solar powered spacecraft.

Unfortunately there was problems during the launch, and Cosmos 1 never made it to space. The mission however was not a failure, but showed that privately funded space missions can be done.

Hopefully this bodes well for future space missions.