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Solar System Missions
Current Missions
* Current missions are listed from earliest launch to most recent.
Voyager to the outer planets
Launches: August 20 and September 5, 1977 The twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and 2 flew by and observed Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Both craft are now heading out of the solar system. In 1998, Voyager 1 became the most distant human-made object in space.
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Ulysses solar polar mission
Launch: October 6, 1990 A joint project between NASA and the European Space Agency, the Ulysses spacecraft was carried into Earth orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Discover and then it was propelled toward Jupiter. The giant planet's gravity helped direct the craft's flight path into a final orbit around the Sun, where it is studying the Sun's north and south poles.
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Mars Global Surveyor
Launch: November 7, 1996 This orbiter's prime mission was to map Mars. Having successfully completed its main mission, it entered an extended mission phase on January 31, 2001.
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Cassini-Huygens to Saturn
Launch: October 15, 1997 While making its way toward Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft imaged the Masursky asteroid.
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Stardust
Launch: February 7, 1999 The Stardust spacecraft will fly through the cloud of dust that surrounds the nucleus of comet Wild-2 and, for the first time ever, bring cometary material back to Earth.
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2001 Mars Odyssey
Launch Date: April 7, 2001
2001 Mars Odyssey is an orbiting spacecraft designed to determine the composition of the Martian surface, to detect water and shallow buried ice, and to study the radiation environment.
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Mars Exploration Rovers
The first rover launched on June 10, 2003. The second rover launched on July 7, 2003 Two
mobile robotic geologists, Spirit and Opportunity, have been exploring Mars since
January 2004. Clues found in some rocks indicate liquid water once covered the
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Microwave Instrument on the Rosetta Orbiter
Launch: Mar. 2, 2004
This JPL instrument will study gases given off by comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenkos as the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft orbits the comet during its swing through the inner solar system. Rosetta is scheduled to rendezvous with the comet in 2014.
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Future Missions
* Mission list begins with the earliest future launch.
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Deep Impact
Planned Launch: 2004
Deep Impact is a spacecraft that would travel to comet Tempel 1 and release a small i
mpactor, creating a hole in the side of the comet.
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Dawn
Planned launch: 2006
A competitively selection under NASA's Discovery Program, Dawn will orbit Vesta and Ceres, two of the largest asteroids in the solar system.
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Mars Science Laboratory
Planned launch: no earlier than 2009
NASA proposes to develop and to launch a roving long-range, long-duration science laboratory that will be a major leap in surface measurements and pave the way for a future sample return mission.
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Proposed Missions
* Mission list begins with the earliest proposed launch.
Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter
Proposed Launch: not before 2011
This proposed mission would orbit three planet-sized moons of Jupiter -- Callisto, Ganymede and Europa -- to make extensive investigations of their makeup, their history and their potential for sustaining life.
Mission home page
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Past Missions
* Mission list begins with the earliest launch.
Explorer 1-5
Launches: January-August, 1958 Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States on January 31, 1958. Explorer 2 was launched on March 5, 1958. Explorer 3 was successfully launched on March 26, 1958. Explorer 4 was launched July 26, 1958. Launch of Explorer 5 was on August 24, 1958.
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Pioneer 3-4
Launches: December 6, 1958; March 3, 1959 Pioneer 3 and 4 were early satellites designed to be lofted toward the Moon. Because of a slight error, Pioneer 3 did not reach the Moon; instead it achieved a peak altitude of 102,320 kilometers (63,580 miles).
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Rangers to the Moon
Launches: 1961-65 The Ranger project of the 1960s was the first U.S. effort to launch probes directly toward the Moon. The craft were designed to relay pictures and other data as they approached the Moon and finally crash-landed into its surface. Although the first attempts failed, the later Ranges were a complete success.
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Surveyors to the Moon
Launches: 1966-68 The Surveyor missions were the first U.S. effort to make a soft landing on the Moon. Most were successful and the Surveyor series acquired almost 90,000 images.
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Mariner 1-2 to Venus
Launches: July 22 and August 27, 1962 Mariner 2, developed to fly by Venus, studied the planet's atmosphere and surface. During its journey to Venus, the craft measured for the first time solar wind.
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Mariner 3-4 to Mars
Launches: November 5 and 28, 1964 Mariner 4 carried out the first flyby of Mars and collected the first close-up photographs of another planet.
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Mariner 5 to Venus
Launch: June 4, 1967 Mariner 5 flew within 4,000 kilometers (approximately 2,500 miles) of Venus
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Mariner 6-7 to Mars
Launches: February 24 and March 27, 1969 Mariner 6 and 7 completed the first dual mission to Mars, flying by over the equator and south polar regions and analyzing the Martian atmosphere and surface with remote sensors.
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Mariner 8-9 to Mars
Launches: May 8 and 30, 1971 Mariner 9 was the first artificial satellite of Mars and orbited the planet for nearly a year.
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Mariner 10 to Venus and Mercury
Launch: November 3, 1973 With the scorched inner planet of Mercury as its ultimate target, the Mariner 10 spacecraft pioneered the use of a (gravity assist) swing by Venus to bend its flight path.
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Viking to Mars
Launches: August 20 and September 9, 1975 The Viking Project was the first mission to land a spacecraft safely on the surface of another planet. Two identical spacecraft each had an orbiter and a lander; both orbiter-lander pairs successfully studied Mars.
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Infrared Astronomical Satellite
Launch: January 25, 1983
This satellite put an infrared telescope in orbit above the interference of Earth's atmosphere. The mission had many unexpected discoveries, including the discovery of solid material around the stars Vega and Fomalhaut.
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Magellan to Venus
Launch: May 4, 1989 Magellan orbited Venus and mapped 99 percent of its surface.
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Galileo to Jupiter
Launch: October 18, 1989 The Galileo spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter since December, 1995. En route to the planet, the craft encountered asteroids and a comet. The mission ended on Sept. 21, 2003, when the spacecraft plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere.
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Mars Observer
Launch: September 25, 1992 After a 17-year gap since its last mission to the red planet, the United States launched Mars Observer on September 25, 1992.
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Mars Pathfinder
Launch: December 4, 1996 Mars Pathfinder, consisting of a lander and the Sojourner rover, both returned an unprecedented amount of data and outlived their primary design lives.
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Deep Space 1
Launch: October 24, 1998 Deep Space 1, a spacecraft built to test new technologies in space, successfully completed its primary mission. On an extended mission, it flew past comet Borrelly in September 2001, taking the best ever images of a comet's nucleus.
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Mars Climate Orbiter
Launch: December 11, 1998 Mars Climate Orbiter was designed to function as an interplanetary weather satellite and a communications relay for Mars Polar Lander.
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Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2
Launch: January 3, 1999 Mars Polar Lander was an ambitious mission to set a spacecraft down on the frigid terrain near the edge of Mars' south polar cap and dig for water ice with a robotic arm.
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Genesis
Launch Date: August 8, 2001 Genesis collected samples of charged particles in the solar wind and returned them to Earth in September 2004. Although the capsule's parachutes did not deploy, scientists expect to be able to achieve most of their science objectives with samples recovered from the capsule.
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