NASA Missions

The Moon

APOLLO (1963 – 1972) Goal: To put a man on the Moon Apollo 8 and 10: Orbited Moon Apollo 11 – 17 (except 13): Landed on Moon and returned

LEM Command Module

The Outer Planets

Voyager 1 and 2 Goal: To study the Outer Planets; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune (1977 – present)

The Voyagers are now the most distant human-made objects. Voyager 2 examined Jupiter and Saturn and then became the only spacecraft ever to visit Uranus and Neptune.

Jupiter

Galileo Goal: To photograph and study Jupiter and its Moons, and follow-up on some of the discoveries of Voyager

Jupiter and Io

Io Europa

Tvashtar New Horizons pic 2007 volcano aurora

Asteroid Ida and satellite Galileo took over pictures of Jupiter, its Moons, asteroids, the Earth and Moon

Saturn

Cassini present Goal: To photograph and study Saturn and its Moons

Saturn and Mimas

Huygens Cassini carried the ESA lander Huygens, which landed on the moon Titan in January, 2005

Mars

Mars Rovers (2003 – present) Spirit and Opportunity Goal: To search for proof of water and signs of life

The Rovers landed on Mars in 2003 and have found proof that water once existed on Mars. They have taken over pictures, roamed the planet, bored holes into rock and discovered what it is made of

Curiosity Huge Mars rover (weighs over a ton) launched 11/26/2011 Arrived August Designed to find organic molecules.

Asteroids

Dawn (Sept ) Will orbit the two largest objects in the asteroid belt, the dwarf planet Ceres and the 2 nd largest asteroid Vesta. It went into orbit around Vesta in Dawn has an “Ion Engine” which accelerated the ship to 78,000 mph. It carries a camera and spectrometer. It has left Vesta, and arrived into orbit around Ceres on March 06, 2015.

Vesta 2011

Ceres 2015

Hayabusa (2003 – 2010) Launched by the Japanese space agency, it scooped a soil sample off the asteroid Itokawa, and returned it to Earth. It revealed that this asteroid is made of similar material to meteorites, and is not very solid, more like a pile of loose rubble.

Mercury

Messenger MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging Launched: summer of 2004, started orbiting Mercury in 2011 Goal: To map Mercury

Messenger was intentionally crashed into Mercury on April 30, 2015, as the batteries were failing

Comets

Comet Missions Stardust (1999 – present): In 2004, flew through the debris of Comet Wild 2, collecting samples. It returned those to Earth in January, Those samples included the amino acid glycene, which is a building block of proteins.

Deep Impact (launched January, 2005): smashed a 820 lb. mass into comet Tempel 1 July, 2006, to observe the impact, crater, and analyze the ejecta.

Pluto

New Horizons Launched Jan Flew by Pluto in July First spacecraft ever sent to Pluto, it will continue on to study Kuiper Belt objects through 2020.

Pluto 2015

Space Observatories

SOHO the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Carries 12 different scientific instruments, including spectroscopes, an ultraviolet camera and a oscillation detector.

Chandra Chandra X-Ray Observatory Looks at the Universe in X-rays SN 1987a

Chandra

Hubble Space Telescope Launched in Has a huge optical telescope, a wide field camera, an infrared spectrometer and a spectrograph

Hubble’s replacement: James Webb Space Telescope Expected launch Big optical telescope with strong infrared capabilities

Kepler Searching a small area of the sky for planets Launched March Continuously looked at 150,000 sun-like stars for changes in the amount of light, which would indicate planets. Kepler confirmed over 1000 exoplanets. In 2012, parts of the guidance system failed, but it is still being used for other observations.

International Space Station (2000 – present) The goal is to have a manned presence in space

Space Shuttle Designed to save money as a reusable launch vehicle into space