Past Missions
* Mission list begins with the earliest launch.

Explorer 1-5 Launches: January-August, 1958    Explorer 1 became the first satellite launched by the United States on January 31, 1958. Its main payload was a cosmic ray detector which discovered the Van Allen Radiation Belts. It was followed by four similar satellites, two of which were successful. Mission description

Pioneer 3-4 Launches: December 6, 1958; March 3, 1959    Pioneer 3 and 4 were early satellites designed to be lofted toward the Moon. Pioneer 4 successfully passed within 60,000 kilometers (37,300 miles) of the Moon and is now orbiting the Sun, the first U.S. spacecraft placed in solar orbit. Mission description

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 Rangers were a complete success. Mission description

Surveyors to the Moon Launches: 1966-68    The Surveyor missions were the first U.S. efforts to make soft landings on the Moon. Most were successful and the Surveyor series acquired almost 90,000 images from five lunar sites. Mission description

Mariner 1-2 to Venus Launches: July 22 and August 27, 1962    Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to fly by another planet, studying Venus' atmosphere and surface. During its journey to Earth's neighbor, the craft made the first-ever measurements of the solar wind. Mission description

Mariner 3-4 to Mars Launches: November 5 and 28, 1964    Mariner 4 collected the first close-up photos of another planet when it flew by Mars. As it passed the planet it revealed lunar-type impact craters, some of them touched with frost in the chill Martian evening. Mission description

Mariner 5 to Venus Launch: June 4, 1967    Originally a backup Mars craft, Mariner 5 was redirected to Venus, flying within 4,000 kilometers (approximately 2,500 miles) of that planet. Mission description

Mariner 6-7 to Mars Launches: February 24 and March 27, 1969    Mariner 6 and 7 completed the first dual mission to Mars, flying past the equator and south polar regions and analyzing the Martian atmosphere and surface with remote sensors. Mission description

Mariner 8-9 to Mars Launches: May 8 and 30, 1971    Mariner 9 was the first artificial satellite of Mars, orbiting the planet for nearly a year. It revealed a very different planet than expected -- one that boasted gigantic volcanoes and an immense canyon stretching 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles) across its surface. Mission description

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. Mission description

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 craft each had an orbiter and a lander; both orbiter-lander pairs successfully studied Mars. Mission description

Seasat Launch: June 26, 1978    This experimental satellite flight-tested four instruments that used radar to study Earth and its seas. Many later Earth-orbiting instruments developed at JPL owe their legacy to this mission. Seawinds site Mission description

Solar Mesosphere Explorer Launch: October 6, 1981    This satellite investigated the processes that create and destroy ozone in Earth's upper atmosphere. Mission description

Shuttle Imaging Radar Launches: 1981, 1984, 1994, 2000     This series of missions flown on NASA's Space Shuttle over two decades pioneered imaging radar, a technology that uses radar pulses to capture images of Earth. After two missions in the 1980s, projects in 1994 and 2000 added new radar frequencies and a second antenna to measure Earth's topography. Shuttle Imaging Radar site Mission description

Shuttle Payloads Launches: Various dates    In addition to the Shuttle Imaging Radar series, a number of JPL payloads have flown over the years in the cargo bay of NASA space shuttles.

Infrared Astronomical Satellite Launch: January 25, 1983    This satellite put an infrared telescope in orbit above the interference of Earth's atmosphere. The mission provided many unexpected findings, including the discovery of solid material around the stars Vega and Fomalhaut. Mission description

Magellan to Venus Launch: May 4, 1989     This orbiter used imaging radar to map 99 percent of the surface of Venus over four years. After concluding its radar mapping, Magellan made global maps of Venus's gravity field. Flight controllers also tested a new maneuvering technique called aerobraking, which uses a planet's atmosphere to slow or steer a spacecraft. Archived Magellan site Mission description

Galileo to Jupiter Launch: October 18, 1989    Upon arrival at Jupiter in December 1995, the Galileo spacecraft delivered a probe that descended into the giant planet's atmosphere. Since then the orbiter has completed many flybys of Jupiter's major moons, reaping a variety of science discoveries. The mission ended in Sept. 21, 2003 when the spacecraft plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere. Galileo home page Mission description

Mars Observer Launch: September 25, 1992    This Mars orbiter was lost shortly before arrival at the red planet. Mars exploration Mission description

NASA Scatterometer Launch: August 17, 1996    This ocean-observing satellite carries an instrument called a scatterometer, which operates by sending radar pulses to the ocean surface and measuring the "backscattered" or echoed radar pulses bounced back to the satellite. It could acquire hundreds of times more observations of surface wind velocity each day than can ships and buoys. Instrument home page Mission description

Mars Pathfinder Launch: December 4, 1996    Mars Pathfinder, consisting of a lander and the Sojourner rover, returned an unprecedented amount of data as they explored an ancient flood plain in Mars’ northern hemisphere known as Ares Vallis. Archived Pathfinder site Mars exploration site Mission description

Space Very Long Baseline Interferometry (Space VLBI) Launch Date: February 1997    Japan's Very Long Baseline Interferometry Space Observatory Program spacecraft is supported by an international collaboration to study the distant universe, including black holes. The spacecraft's onboard radio astronomy antenna observes simultaneously with ground radio antennas, including NASA's Deep Space Network, to create the equivalent of a radio-observing telescope bigger than Earth. Mission home page

Deep Space 1 Launch: October 24, 1998    Unlike missions focused on science investigations, Deep Space 1 was a spacecraft designed to flight-test new technologies -- including an ion engine that could power solar system explorers of the future. With its primary mission successfully completed, the craft went on an extended mission and flew by comet Borrelly in September 2001, taking the best pictures ever of a comet's nucleus. Deep Space 1 home page Mission description

Mars Climate Orbiter Launch: December 11, 1998    Mars Climate Orbiter, designed to function as an interplanetary weather satellite, was lost on arrival at the planet. Mars exploration site Mission description

Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2 Launch: January 3, 1999    This ambitious mission to set a spacecraft down on the frigid terrain near the edge of Mars' south polar cap was lost during descent and landing. Mars exploration site Mission description

Wide-field Infrared Explorer Launch: March 4, 1999    The cryogenically cooled infrared telescope onboard this small satellite became unusable shortly after launch. Mission description

Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Launch: February 2000    On a 11-day flight aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in February 2000, SRTM acquired enough data to obtain the most complete near-global mapping of our planet's topography to date.The mission is still processing data and images. Mission home page

Genesis Launch: 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. Genesis home page Mission description

SeaWinds on Midori 2 Launch: December 13, 2002    This scatterometer instrument, called SeaWinds, was launched on a Japanese satellite but that satellite stopped functioning later that year. Instrument home page Mission description

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