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185 records
Snapshot 2026-09-02
Launched 2025
Failed · FailureA NASA smallsat that was to map water on the Moon from polar orbit, lost when contact failed hours after launch.
Launched 2023
Completed · Partial SuccessA Japanese pinpoint-landing demonstration that touched down close to its target but came to rest with its solar panels facing the wrong way.
Launched 2023
Failed · FailureRussia's first lunar mission since 1976, targeted at the south polar region and lost when communications ceased days after launch.
Launched 2023
Completed · SuccessIndia's successful lunar landing, which set the Vikram lander down in the south polar region and deployed a rover onto the surface.
Launched 2023
Active missionESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, launched on 14 April 2023 on an Ariane 5 from Kourou and still in interplanetary cruise. Its targets are Jupiter and the ocean-bearing Galilean moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto, due to be reached in July 2031. It has flown what ESA calls a world-first lunar-Earth gravity assist on 19-20 August 2024, passing the Moon and then Earth a day apart, and a Venus gravity assist on 31 August 2025; two further Earth gravity assists, planned for 2026 and 2029, have not happened. This atlas has no body record for Ganymede, Europa or Callisto, so those three are absent from the destinations listed here.
Launched 2022
Failed · FailureA commercial Japanese technology demonstration lander, built by ispace, that reached lunar orbit but was lost during its descent to the surface.
Launched 2022
Failed · FailureA NASA CubeSat intended to look for surface ice in permanently shadowed lunar craters, ended early by problems with its thrusters.
Launched 2022
Completed · SuccessThe uncrewed first flight of NASA's Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, sent around the Moon and back to test the systems for a later crewed launch.
Launched 2022
Partial Success · Partial SuccessA CubeSat that flew past the Moon after the Artemis I launch but could not reach the low polar orbit from which it was to map water ice.
Launched 2022
Active missionSouth Korea's first mission beyond Earth orbit, a lunar polar orbiter also known as the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter.
Launched 2022
Active missionA 25 kg spacecraft sent to fly and prove the near-rectilinear halo orbit intended for a future crewed lunar outpost.
Launched 2020
Completed · SuccessChina's first lunar sample return: a lander that drilled and scooped regolith in Oceanus Procellarum and delivered 1.731 kg of it to Earth.
Launched 2020
Active missionNASA's active Mars 2020 mission operates the Perseverance rover in Jezero Crater, searching for signs of ancient microbial life and caching rock and regolith samples.
Launched 2019
Active missionIndia's second lunar mission, whose orbiter continues to operate after the Vikram lander was lost during its descent.
Launched 2019
Failed · FailureA privately funded Israeli lander that reached lunar orbit before crashing during its descent to the surface.
Launched 2018
Active missionThe first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, which delivered the Yutu-2 rover into Von Karman crater.
Launched 2018
Active missionJoint ESA and JAXA mission to Mercury, launched on 20 October 2018 as a stack of ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter, JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio), Mio's sunshield and interface structure, and ESA's Mercury Transfer Module. Its cruise made one Earth flyby, two Venus flybys and six Mercury flybys between April 2020 and January 2025 on solar electric propulsion, which ESA switched off for the last time on 15 June 2026. ESA's mission page, read on 2 September 2026, gave the status as in operation and en route to Mercury. Its countries are the contractor countries ESA's An international endeavour page names, plus Japan for JAXA; not an ESA member-state contribution map.
Launched 2018
Completed · SuccessA Chinese microsatellite that reached lunar orbit for low-frequency radio astronomy and returned images of the Earth beyond the Moon.
Launched 2018
Active missionA Chinese relay satellite placed in a halo orbit beyond the Moon so that a lander on the far side could keep in contact with Earth.
Launched 2016
Active missionNASA's first mission to collect a sample from an asteroid and return it to Earth. Launched 8 September 2016 on an Atlas V 411, OSIRIS-REx arrived at near-Earth asteroid Bennu on 3 December 2018, entered orbit on 31 December 2018, collected regolith at the Nightingale site during a Touch-And-Go event on 20 October 2020, departed Bennu on 10 May 2021, and delivered its sample return capsule to the Utah Test and Training Range on 24 September 2023. The capsule held 121.6 grams of Bennu material. The spacecraft itself did not land; it was renamed OSIRIS-APEX and redirected to asteroid Apophis.
Launched 2014
Completed · SuccessA Chinese circumlunar test flight that proved the high-speed atmospheric re-entry needed for a later lunar sample return.
Launched 2013
Completed · SuccessThe first soft landing on the Moon in 37 years, which delivered the Yutu rover to Mare Imbrium.
Launched 2013
Completed · SuccessA NASA orbiter that studied the Moon's tenuous exosphere and dust environment from low altitude before a planned impact.
Launched 2011
Completed · SuccessTwin NASA orbiters that flew in formation to map the Moon's gravitational field in unprecedented detail before impacting the surface together.
Launched 2011
Active missionNASA New Frontiers orbiter studying Jupiter from a highly elliptical near-polar orbit since July 2016, measuring the planet's gravity and magnetic fields, deep-atmosphere water and ammonia, and its polar magnetosphere and aurorae; in its extended mission it has also made close passes of Ganymede, Europa, Io and the inner moon Thebe.
Launched 2010
Completed · SuccessChina's second lunar orbiter, which mapped the Moon at higher resolution before leaving it to fly past the asteroid Toutatis.
Launched 2009
Completed · SuccessA NASA mission that steered a spent upper stage into a permanently shadowed south polar crater and flew through the plume to look for water.
Launched 2009
Active missionNASA robotic lunar polar orbiter launched on 18 June 2009 that maps the Moon's surface topography, temperature, composition and radiation environment, with emphasis on the polar regions and on identifying safe landing sites and resources such as water ice. Still operating in 2026, it is described by NASA as the longest-lived lunar orbiting mission ever.
Launched 2008
Completed · Partial SuccessIndia's first lunar mission, which carried a Moon Impact Probe and returned evidence of water on the lunar surface.
Launched 2007
Completed · SuccessChina's first lunar mission, which imaged the whole Moon before being sent to a controlled impact on the surface.
Launched 2007
Completed · SuccessA Japanese lunar orbiter that mapped the Moon's topography and gravity, accompanied by two small relay and radio-science subsatellites.
Launched 2007
Completed · SuccessPhoenix launched on 04 August 2007 on a Delta II 7925 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and its 681 million km heliocentric cruise to Mars took approximately 10 months. At 1 km altitude the parachute was released and a powered descent and soft-landing was achieved using a pulsed propulsion system with 8 thrusters, which turned off when footpad sensors detected touchdown. The landing site is in the north polar region between 65 and 72 degrees N, a relatively boulder-free area with a high ratio of ice to rock. Communications were maintained through the relays on the orbiting Mars spacecraft Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Express throughout the descent. As the summer ended the mission had less solar energy to operate and made its last transmission on 02 November 2008 before power was depleted.
Launched 2007
Active missionTwo of the five THEMIS spacecraft, repurposed years after launch and moved into lunar orbit to study the Moon's interaction with the solar wind from two vantage points.
Launched 2006
Active missionNASA's active New Horizons mission performed the first close exploration of Pluto and later flew past Arrokoth, the most distant object explored up close.
Launched 2005
Active missionNASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter blasted off from Cape Canaveral in 2005, on a search for evidence that water persisted on the surface of Mars for long periods of time. While other Mars missions have shown that water flowed across the surface in Mars' history, it remains a mystery whether water was ever around long enough to provide a habitat for life. The cruise to Mars took seven months and included checkouts, calibrations, navigation, and five trajectory correction maneuvers; the orbiter reached Mars and went into orbit on 10 March 2006, and aerobraking was used over the next six months to lower the orbit to the 255 x 320 km science orbit. NASA's mission page lists it as an active mission with a mission duration of 2006 - ongoing.
Launched 2004
Completed · SuccessNASA Discovery-class orbiter, built and operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, that became the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury. After one Earth, two Venus and three Mercury gravity-assist flybys it entered Mercury orbit on 18 March 2011 UTC, characterised the planet's surface composition, geological history, magnetic field and exosphere, verified water ice in permanently shadowed polar craters, and ended by impacting Mercury on 30 April 2015 after exhausting its propellant.
Launched 2004
Completed · SuccessESA's Rosetta was the first mission to rendezvous with a comet, the first to follow one around the Sun, and the first to deploy a lander to a comet's surface. Launched 2 March 2004 on an Ariane 5 G+ from Kourou, it used three Earth gravity assists and one Mars gravity assist, flew past asteroids Steins and Lutetia, hibernated for 31 months, and arrived at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 6 August 2014. It released the Philae lander on 12 November 2014 and ended with a controlled descent onto the comet on 30 September 2016.
Launched 2003
Completed · SuccessThe first European mission to the Moon, and a demonstration of solar-electric ion propulsion on a journey that spiralled outward from Earth orbit.
Launched 2003
Completed · SuccessOpportunity (Mars Exploration Rover B or MER-1) is one of two rovers launched to Mars in mid-2003. The scientific goals of the rover missions are to gather data to help determine if life ever arose on Mars, characterize the climate of Mars, characterize the geology of Mars, and prepare for human exploration of Mars. It came to rest in a 20 m diameter crater at Terra Meridiani, also known as the Hematite Site because it displays evidence of coarse-grained hematite, an iron-rich mineral which typically forms in water. Opportunity explored Meridiani Terra, returning images and data from its scientific instruments, for over 14 years, and the final communication from the rover was received on 10 June 2018.
Launched 2003
Completed · SuccessThe Spirit rover (Mars Exploration Rover A or MER-2) is one of two rovers launched to Mars in mid-2003. The scientific goals of the rover missions are to gather data to help determine if life ever arose on Mars, characterize the climate of Mars, characterize the geology of Mars, and prepare for human exploration of Mars. Spirit landed in Gusev Crater on 4 January 2004 and drove off the platform onto the surface on 15 January. It explored Gusev crater, taking images and making scientific measurements, although it lost the use of one of its six wheels; on 23 April 2009 the rover broke through a thin crust into a pocket of sand that severely limited its mobility, and by 1 May it could no longer move at all. The last transmission from Spirit occurred on 22 March 2010, after the rover had travelled a total of 7.73 km over a period of 6 years, 2 months.
Launched 2003
Active missionMars Express is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to Mars. It consists of an orbiter, the Mars Express Orbiter, and a lander, Beagle 2. The scientific objectives of the orbiter are to obtain global high-resolution photo-geology, mineralogical mapping and mapping of the atmospheric composition, and to study the subsurface structure, the global atmospheric circulation, and the interaction between the atmosphere and the subsurface and the interplanetary medium. The orbiter fired its main engine for 37 minutes on 25 December 2003 and went into a highly elliptical capture orbit, later adjusted to a near-polar orbit with a period of 7.5 hours. Beagle 2 was released on 19 December, no signals were received following its scheduled landing, and the lander was declared lost. ESA's Mars Express page, fetched on 2026-09-02, gives the mission's status as In operation.
Launched 2001
Active missionThe 2001 Mars Odyssey is the remaining part of the Mars Surveyor 2001 Project, which originally consisted of two separately launched missions, the Mars Surveyor 2001 Orbiter and the Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander; the lander spacecraft was cancelled as part of the reorganization of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA. The orbiter's objective is a detailed mineralogical analysis of the planet's surface from orbit and measurement of the radiation environment, and it also acts as a communications relay for missions on the surface. It reached Mars on 24 October 2001 and used aerobraking to settle into an approximately 400 x 400 km polar science orbit. NASA's mission page lists it as an active mission with a mission duration of 2001 - ongoing.
Launched 1999
Lost · FailureA pair of small probes, the Deep Space 2 Mars Microprobes, attached to the Mars Polar Lander spacecraft and to be deployed to fall and penetrate beneath the martian surface when the spacecraft reached Mars. NSSDCA gives Deep Space 2 an entry of its own while describing it as a penetrator mission flying aboard the Mars Polar Lander, and NSSDCA's chronology of Mars exploration classifies it Attempted Mars Penetrators. The two 3.5 kg microprobes were to be dropped from the cruise stage into the martian atmosphere about 18 seconds after the cruise stage was jettisoned, targeted at the southern polar layered terrain; because contact with Mars Polar Lander was lost before atmospheric entry, it is not known whether any of that took place as designed.
Launched 1999
Lost · FailureThe Mars Surveyor '98 program is comprised of two spacecraft launched separately, the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander, designed to study the Martian weather, climate, and water and carbon dioxide budget in order to understand the reservoirs, behavior, and atmospheric role of volatiles and to search for evidence of long-term and episodic climate changes. The Mars Polar Lander was to touch down on the southern polar layered terrain, between 73 S and 76 S, less than 1000 km from the south pole, near the edge of the carbon dioxide ice cap in Mars' late southern spring. The last telemetry from Mars Polar Lander was sent just prior to atmospheric entry on 3 December 1999. No further signals have been received from the lander, the cause of this loss of communication is not known.
Launched 1998
Lost · FailureNASA's Mars Climate Orbiter was to be the first interplanetary weather satellite at Mars and a communications relay for the Mars Polar Lander. Launched 11 December 1998 on a Delta II from Cape Canaveral, it was lost on 23 September 1999 during the Mars Orbit Insertion burn. The Mishap Investigation Board found the root cause was the failure to use metric units in a ground software file, "Small Forces", used in trajectory models: thruster impulse data was delivered in pound-seconds instead of the specified newton-seconds, low by a factor of 4.45, driving the spacecraft roughly 170 km lower than planned at Mars arrival.
Launched 1998
Failed · FailureNozomi (Japanese for Hope and known before launch as Planet-B) was planned as a Mars orbiting aeronomy mission designed to study the martian upper atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind and to develop technologies for use in future planetary missions. A malfunctioning valve during an Earth swingby resulted in a loss of fuel and left the spacecraft with insufficient acceleration to reach its planned trajectory, and solar flares later damaged its communications and power systems. Efforts to put the Nozomi spacecraft into martian orbit have been abandoned: an attempt to fire thrusters to orient the craft for a Mars orbit insertion burn failed on December 9, the smaller thrusters were successfully fired, and Nozomi flew past Mars at a distance of 1000 km on 14 December and went into a heliocentric orbit with a period of roughly two years.
Launched 1998
Completed · SuccessA NASA orbiter that surveyed the Moon's composition and polar hydrogen before being deliberately crashed into a south polar crater.
Launched 1997
Completed · SuccessThe joint NASA, ESA, and ASI mission placed Cassini in orbit around Saturn and delivered ESA's Huygens probe to the surface of Titan.
Launched 1996
Completed · SuccessThe Mars Pathfinder was the second of NASA's low-cost planetary Discovery missions to be launched. The mission consists of a stationary lander and a surface rover, and had the primary objective of demonstrating the feasibility of low-cost landings on and exploration of the Martian surface. The spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere on 4 July 1997 directly from its approach hyperbola at about 7300 m/s without going into orbit around the planet, and the airbag-encased lander bounced about 12 meters into the air, bouncing at least another 15 times and rolling before coming to rest. Images were taken and experiments performed by the lander and rover until 27 September 1997 when communications were lost for unknown reasons. The lander has been named the Sagan Memorial Station.
Launched 1996
Failed · FailureThe Russian Mars 96 mission was designed to send an orbiter, two small autonomous stations, and two surface penetrators to Mars to investigate the evolution and contemporary physics of the planet by studying the physical and chemical processes which took place in the past and which currently take place. The Mars 96 spacecraft was launched into Earth orbit, but failed to achieve insertion into Mars cruise trajectory and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere at about 00:45 to 01:30 UT on 17 November 1996 and crashed within a presumed 320 km by 80 km area which includes parts of the Pacific Ocean, Chile, and Bolivia. The cause of the crash is not known.
Launched 1996
Completed · SuccessThe Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) orbited Mars over a seven year period and collected data on the surface morphology, topography, composition, gravity, atmospheric dynamics, and magnetic field, to be used to investigate the surface processes, geology, distribution of material, internal properties, evolution of the magnetic field, and the weather and climate of Mars. It was inserted into an elliptical capture orbit in September 1997, and because one of the solar panels failed to latch properly when it was deployed, a new aerobraking schedule was employed which involved slower aerobraking putting less pressure on the solar panels. The primary mission lasted one martian year through January 2001, an extended mission took place until April 2002, and further extensions were added until contact with the spacecraft was lost on 2 November 2006.
Launched 1994
Completed · Partial SuccessA joint Defense Department and NASA mission that mapped the Moon in eleven wavelengths before a malfunction ended its planned asteroid encounter.
Launched 1992
Lost · FailureMars Observer, the first of the Observer series of planetary missions, was designed to study the geoscience and climate of Mars. Its primary science objectives were to determine the global elemental and mineralogical character of the surface material, define globally the topography and gravitational field, establish the nature of the Martian magnetic field, determine the distribution and abundance of volatiles and dust over a seasonal cycle, and explore the structure and circulation of the atmosphere. Contact with Mars Observer was lost on August 21, 1993, three days before scheduled orbit insertion, for unknown reasons and has not been re-established; it is not known whether the spacecraft was able to follow its automatic programming and go into Mars orbit or if it flew by Mars and is now in a heliocentric orbit. Although none of the primary objectives of the mission were achieved, cruise mode data were collected up to loss of contact.
Launched 1990
Completed · SuccessA Japanese engineering mission that tested aerobraking and lunar swingby techniques and released a small orbiter into lunar orbit.
Launched 1989
Completed · SuccessNASA mission, with participation by the Federal Republic of Germany, comprising a Jupiter orbiter and an atmospheric entry probe deployed from Space Shuttle Atlantis in October 1989. Flying a Venus-Earth-Earth gravity-assist trajectory, it made the first close flybys of asteroids (951 Gaspra and 243 Ida), observed the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts on Jupiter, delivered the first probe into a giant planet's atmosphere on 7 December 1995, and orbited Jupiter until it was deliberately steered into the planet on 21 September 2003 to avoid contaminating Europa.
Launched 1989
Completed · SuccessNASA's Magellan orbiter mapped Venus with synthetic aperture radar from 1990 to 1994. Deployed from Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-30R, it entered Venus orbit on 10 August 1990, imaged about 98 percent of the surface over three 243-day mapping cycles, then collected a global gravity field, performed the first planetary aerobraking demonstration, and was deliberately flown into the Venusian atmosphere; radio contact was lost on 12 October 1994.
Launched 1988
Partial Success · Partial SuccessOne of two 1F spacecraft launched in July 1988, and the one that reached Mars. Phobos 2 operated nominally throughout its cruise and Mars orbital insertion phases, gathering data on the Sun, interplanetary medium, Mars, and Phobos. Shortly before the final phase of the mission, during which the spacecraft was to approach within 50 m of Phobos' surface and release two landers, one a mobile hopper, the other a stationary platform, contact with Phobos 2 was lost. The mission ended when the spacecraft signal failed to be successfully reacquired on 27 March 1989. The cause of the failure was determined to be a malfunction of the on-board computer.
Launched 1988
Lost · FailureOne of two 1F spacecraft launched in July 1988, the next-generation in the Venera-type planetary missions, succeeding those last used during the Vega 1 and 2 missions to comet P/Halley. The objectives of the Phobos missions were to conduct studies of the interplanetary environment, perform observations of the Sun, characterize the plasma environment in the Martian vicinity, conduct surface and atmospheric studies of Mars, and study the surface composition of the Martian satellite Phobos. Phobos 1 operated nominally until an expected communications session failed to occur. The failure of controllers to regain contact with the spacecraft was traced to an error in the software uploaded on 29/30 August which had deactivated the attitude thrusters. This resulted in a loss of lock on the Sun, resulting in the spacecraft orienting the solar arrays away from the Sun, thus depleting the batteries.
Launched 1977
Active missionNASA's Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter and Saturn before becoming the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, where its extended mission continues.
Launched 1977
Active missionNASA's Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited all four giant planets at close range and now continues its extended mission in interstellar space.