One thing to keep in mind is that this is part of a headline. In a headline, the goal is to convey as much important information as possible in a very constrain

One thing to keep in mind is that this is part of a headline. In a headline, the goal is to convey as much important information as possible in a very constrained amount of space. Headlines have a different style from normal sentences. In this case, "failed" is really the history of the probe: well before crashing into the ocean, it had already failed; for a while it had just been slowly spiraling to its death.