Robotic Exploration History

The Soviet Luna 2 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another world, impacting the Moon.

John Glenn circles the Earth three times aboard Friendship 7, the first American to orbit the planet.

The Soviet Luna 9 makes the first soft landing on the Moon and returns the first pictures from its surface.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the Moon while Michael Collins orbits above — the first humans to set foot on another world.

Apollo 11 landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, the first humans to walk on another world.

Venera 7 returned data from the surface of Venus, the first successful landing on another planet.

The Soviet Venera 7 transmits from the surface of Venus, the first successful landing on another planet.

The final Apollo landing; Eugene Cernan is, to date, the last person to walk on the Moon, and geologist Harrison Schmitt the only scientist to do so.

Viking 1 was the first spacecraft to land and operate successfully on the surface of Mars.

Viking 1 becomes the first spacecraft to operate successfully on the surface of Mars, returning the first pictures from the Martian ground and searching for life.

Voyager 2 sweeps past Neptune, the first and only spacecraft to visit the ice giant, completing the reconnaissance of every planet from Mercury to Neptune.

Galileo becomes the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter and drops a probe into its atmosphere, beginning years of study of the giant planet and its moons.

Sojourner, delivered by Mars Pathfinder, was the first wheeled rover to operate on another planet.

Mars Pathfinder lands using airbags and deploys Sojourner, the first successful rover on another planet, proving a low-cost path back to the Martian surface.

Cassini enters orbit around Saturn and later delivers the Huygens probe to Titan, beginning thirteen years of discovery in the Saturn system.

Deep Impact fires a projectile into comet Tempel 1, excavating fresh material to reveal what a comet is made of.

Japan's Hayabusa touches down on the asteroid Itokawa; despite great difficulties it returns to Earth in 2010 with the first samples ever collected from an asteroid.

Hayabusa returned the first samples ever collected from an asteroid, from Itokawa, to Earth.

The car-sized Curiosity rover lands in Gale Crater using the daring sky-crane manoeuvre, beginning a long study of Mars's ancient habitability.

Rosetta's Philae lander made the first soft landing on the nucleus of a comet.

ESA's Rosetta becomes the first spacecraft to orbit a comet and, with its Philae lander, the first to soft-land on one — comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

After a nine-year journey, New Horizons sweeps past Pluto, revealing an astonishingly varied world and completing the first reconnaissance of the classical Solar System.

Within months of each other, Japan's Hayabusa2 delivers samples of asteroid Ryugu to Earth and NASA's OSIRIS-REx collects a sample from asteroid Bennu, opening a new age of asteroid sample return.

The Ingenuity helicopter made the first powered, controlled flight by an aircraft on another planet.

The tiny Ingenuity helicopter, carried by the Perseverance rover, lifts off from the surface of Mars — the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.

India's Chandrayaan-3 makes a soft landing near the Moon's south pole, making India the fourth nation to land on the Moon and the first near the south-polar region.