Space Missions
Humanity's journeys of exploration beyond Earth.
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7- Space mission
ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer)
A NASA mission at the Sun–Earth L1 point that measures the solar wind and energetic particles upstream of Earth, giving roughly an hour of warning before disturbances reach the planet.
- Space mission
AIM (concept)
ESA's Asteroid Impact Mission — the original European orbiter half of the AIDA collaboration, meant to observe the DART impact in real time. It was not funded in 2016, but its science was largely revived and reshaped as the Hera mission.
- Space mission
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 was the NASA mission that in July 1969 first landed humans on the Moon, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the lunar surface.
- Space mission
Apollo 13
Apollo 13's planned lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen-tank explosion; the crew returned safely in a celebrated rescue.
- Space mission
Apollo 17
Apollo 17 was the final crewed Apollo lunar landing, carrying the first scientist-astronaut to the Moon.
- Space mission
Apollo 8
Apollo 8 was the first crewed mission to leave Earth orbit and orbit the Moon, returning the famous 'Earthrise' photograph.
- Space mission
Artemis I
Artemis I was the uncrewed first flight of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft on a path around the Moon.
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1C
7- Space mission
CAESAR (concept)
A NASA New Frontiers proposal to return a sample from comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko — the comet Rosetta explored. It was a finalist in the New Frontiers 4 competition but was not selected (Dragonfly was chosen instead).
- Space mission
Cassini–Huygens
Cassini–Huygens was a NASA–ESA–ASI mission launched in 1997 that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017 and delivered the Huygens probe to the surface of its moon Titan.
- Space mission
Chandrayaan-1
Chandrayaan-1 was India's first lunar mission, whose instruments helped confirm water on the Moon.
- Space mission
Chandrayaan-3
Chandrayaan-3 achieved the first soft landing near the Moon's south pole, making India the fourth nation to land on the Moon.
- Space mission
Chang'e 4
Chang'e 4 achieved the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon.
- Space mission
Chang'e 5
Chang'e 5 returned the first lunar samples since the 1970s.
- Space mission
Comet Interceptor
An ESA (with JAXA) fast-class mission that will wait at the Sun–Earth L2 point for a suitable target, then fly by a pristine, dynamically-new comet — ideally one entering the inner Solar System for the first time, or even an interstellar object.
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8- Space mission
Danuri (KPLO)
Danuri, the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, is South Korea's first mission to the Moon.
- Space mission
DART
DART was the first planetary-defence test, deliberately impacting the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos to change its orbit.
- Space mission
Dawn
Vesta & Ceres orbiter · NASA · launched 2007.
- Space mission
Deep Impact
NASA's mission that fired a 370-kg impactor into comet Tempel 1 in 2005 to excavate and study the material beneath a comet's surface.
- Space mission
Deep Space 1
NASA's ion-propulsion technology demonstrator that flew past comet Borrelly in 2001, returning detailed images of its nucleus.
- Space mission
DESTINY+
A JAXA technology-demonstration and flyby mission that will test advanced ion propulsion en route to a flyby of 3200 Phaethon — the rock-comet source of the Geminid meteor shower — studying its dust.
- Space mission
Don Quijote (concept)
An early-2000s ESA planetary-defense concept — a two-spacecraft study in which an impactor (Hidalgo) would strike an asteroid while an orbiter (Sancho) measured the deflection. It was never built, but it prefigured the AIDA/DART–Hera approach.
- Space mission
DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory)
A NOAA/NASA mission at the Sun–Earth L1 point that provides real-time solar-wind measurements for operational space-weather forecasting, along with full-disc images of Earth.
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3- Space mission
Emirates Mars Mission (Hope)
The Emirates Mars Mission, or Hope, is the United Arab Emirates' Mars orbiter, the Arab world's first interplanetary mission.
- Space mission
EPOXI
The extended mission of the Deep Impact spacecraft, which flew past the small, hyperactive comet Hartley 2 in 2010.
- Space mission
Europa Clipper
Europa Clipper will make dozens of flybys of Jupiter's moon Europa to assess its habitability.
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2G
2H
3- Space mission
Hayabusa
Hayabusa was the first mission to return a sample from an asteroid, the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa.
- Space mission
Hayabusa2
Hayabusa2 collected surface and subsurface samples of the asteroid Ryugu and returned them to Earth.
- Space mission
Hera
ESA's planetary-defense mission to the Didymos–Dimorphos binary, launched in 2024 to survey the aftermath of NASA's DART impact in detail.
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1J
3- Space mission
Janus (cancelled)
A NASA SIMPLEx pair of small spacecraft designed to fly by binary asteroids. Built to share Psyche's launch, the twins were left without a viable trajectory when Psyche slipped by a year, and the mission was cancelled with the spacecraft put into storage.
- Space mission
JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer)
JUICE is ESA's mission to study Jupiter's icy moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa.
- Space mission
Juno
Juno is a NASA space probe launched in 2011 that entered orbit around Jupiter in 2016 to study the planet's composition, gravity, and magnetic field.
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4- Space mission
Lucy
Lucy is touring a record number of asteroids, including several of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.
- Space mission
Luna 17 / Lunokhod 1
Luna 17 delivered Lunokhod 1, the first robotic rover to operate on the surface of another world.
- Space mission
Luna 2
First lunar impact · USSR · launched 1959.
- Space mission
Luna 9
Luna 9 achieved the first soft landing on the Moon and returned the first images from the lunar surface.
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10- Space mission
Magellan
Venus orbiter · NASA · launched 1989.
- Space mission
Mariner 10
Venus & Mercury flyby · NASA · launched 1973.
- Space mission
Mars 2020
Mars rover mission (Perseverance) · NASA · launched 2020.
- Space mission
Mars Express
Mars orbiter · ESA · launched 2003.
- Space mission
Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan)
Mangalyaan made India the first nation to reach Mars orbit on its first attempt.
- Space mission
Mars Pathfinder
Mars Pathfinder landed using airbags and deployed Sojourner, the first wheeled rover on Mars.
- Space mission
Mars Science Laboratory
Mars Science Laboratory is the NASA mission that delivered the Curiosity rover to Mars in 2012 to investigate the planet's climate and geology.
- Space mission
MAVEN
MAVEN studies how Mars lost much of its atmosphere to space over billions of years.
- Space mission
MESSENGER
Mercury orbiter · NASA · launched 2004.
- Space mission
MMX (Martian Moons eXploration)
JAXA's planned mission to the moons of Mars — it will study Phobos and Deimos and return a sample of Phobos to Earth, testing whether the Martian moons are captured asteroids or debris from a giant impact.
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2- Space mission
NEAR Shoemaker
NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid (433 Eros, 2000) and the first to soft-land on one (2001).
- Space mission
New Horizons
New Horizons is a NASA space probe launched in 2006 that performed the first close flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto in 2015.
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2P
4- Space mission
Parker Solar Probe
Parker Solar Probe is a NASA spacecraft launched in 2018 to fly through the Sun's outer atmosphere, making the closest approaches to the Sun of any spacecraft.
- Space mission
Pioneer 10
Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to traverse the asteroid belt and fly past Jupiter.
- Space mission
Pioneer 11
Pioneer 11 flew past Jupiter and became the first spacecraft to encounter Saturn.
- Space mission
Psyche
Psyche is travelling to the metal-rich asteroid 16 Psyche to study a possible exposed planetary core.
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1S
6- Space mission
SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory)
A NASA mission that images the Sun in many ultraviolet wavelengths at high cadence, studying solar activity, flares, and the magnetic field that drives space weather.
- Space mission
SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory)
A joint ESA/NASA solar observatory at the Sun–Earth L1 point, operating since 1995. Its coronagraphs image coronal mass ejections and it is a workhorse of space-weather monitoring (and a prolific comet discoverer).
- Space mission
Solar Orbiter
Solar observatory · ESA / NASA · launched 2020.
- Space mission
Spirit (MER-A)
Spirit was one of NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers, exploring Gusev crater.
- Space mission
Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union and opening the Space Age.
- Space mission
Stardust
NASA's sample-return mission that captured dust from the coma of comet Wild 2 and returned it to Earth in 2006, and later flew past Tempel 1 as Stardust-NExT.
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1V
9- Space mission
Venera 7
Venera 7 made the first soft landing on another planet and the first transmission from the surface of Venus.
- Space mission
Venus Express
Venus Express was ESA's first mission to Venus, studying its dense atmosphere from orbit.
- Space mission
Viking 1
Mars orbiter & lander · NASA · launched 1975.
- Space mission
Viking 2
Viking 2 was the second Viking orbiter–lander pair, landing in Utopia Planitia on Mars.
- Space mission
Voskhod 2
Voskhod 2 was the mission on which Alexei Leonov performed the first spacewalk.
- Space mission
Vostok 1
Vostok 1 carried Yuri Gagarin on the first human spaceflight, a single orbit of the Earth.
- Space mission
Vostok 6
Vostok 6 carried Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to fly in space.
- Space mission
Voyager 1
Voyager 1 is a NASA space probe launched in 1977 that explored Jupiter and Saturn and has since become the most distant human-made object, traveling in interstellar space.
- Space mission
Voyager 2
Voyager 2 is a NASA space probe launched in 1977 and the only spacecraft to have flown past all four giant planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.