Past Missions

Launch: January 12, 2005
Deep Impact traveled to comet Tempel 1 and deployed an impactor that was essentially "run over" by the nucleus of Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005.

› Overview + Deep Impact home page

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.

› Overview + Deep Space 1 home page

Launch: 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.

› Overview + Explorer 1 home page

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. The orbiter then completed many flybys of Jupiter's major moons, reaping a variety of science discoveries. The mission ended on Sept. 21, 2003 when the spacecraft plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere.

› Overview + Galileo home page

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.

› Overview + Genesis home page

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.

› Overview

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.

› Overview + Archived Magellan site

Mariner 1 launch: July 22, 1962
Mariner 2 launch: 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.

› Overview

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.

› Overview

Mariner 3 launch: November 5 1964
Mariner 4 launch: November 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.

› Overview

Launch: June 14, 1967
Originally a backup Mars craft, Mariner 5 was redirected to Venus, flying within 4,000 kilometers (approximately 2,500 miles) of that planet.

› Overview

Mariner 6 launch: February 24, 1969
Mariner 7 launch: February 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.

› Overview

Mariner 8 launch: May 8, 1971
Mariner 9 launch: May 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.

› Overview

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

› Overview + Mars exploration

Launch: November 7,1996
This orbiter studied the entire Martian surface, atmosphere and interior, and has returned more data about the red planet than all previous Mars missions combined. Among key science findings so far, Global Surveyor took pictures of gullies and debris flow features that suggest there may be current sources of liquid water, similar to an aquifer, at or near the surface of the planet.

› Overview + Surveyor home page

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

› Overview + Mars exploration

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.

› Overview + Archived Pathfinder site

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.

› Overview + Archived Deep Space 2 site

Launch: August 17, 1996
This ocean-observing satellite carried an instrument called a scatterometer, which operated by sending radar pulses to the ocean surface and measuring the "backscattered" or echoed radar pulses bounced back to the satellite.

› Overview

Pioneer 3 Launch: December 6, 1958
Pioneer 4 Launch: 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.

› Overview

Launches: 1961-1965
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.

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Launch: June 28, 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.

› Overview

Launch: December 13, 2002
This scatterometer instrument, called SeaWinds, was launched on a Japanese satellite but that satellite stopped functioning later that year.

› Overview + Instrument home page

Launches: November 12, 1981; October 5, 1984; April 9, 1994; September 30, 1994; February 11, 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.

› Overview + Radar home page

Launches: 1981-1998
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.

› Overview

Shuttle Radar Topography Mission

Launch: February 11, 2000
On a 11-day flight aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in February 2000, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission 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.

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

› Overview

Space Very Long Baseline Interferometry (Space VLBI)

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

Launch: February 7, 1999
The Stardust spacecraft successfully flew through the cloud of dust that surrounds the nucleus of comet Wild-2 and gathered a sample of cometary material. The Stardust return capsule landed in January 2006 carrying the collected particles.

› Overview + Stardust home page
+ Stardust-NExT mission description

Launches: 1966-1968
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.

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Launch: August 10, 1992
A joint effort between NASA and France's National Center for Space Studies, this satellite measured sea level every 10 days. This mission allowed scientists to chart the height of the seas across ocean basins with an accuracy of less than 10 centimeters (4 inches), affording a unique view of ocean phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña.

› Overview + Mission home page

Viking 1 Launch: August 20, 1975
Viking 2 Launch: 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.

› Overview + Mars exploration

Launch: May 4, 1999
The cryogenically cooled infrared telescope onboard this small satellite became unusable shortly after launch.

› Overview