Mission Archive

NASA · 2025

Low Earth orbit

A NASA mission mapping the entire sky in 102 colours of near-infrared light, to study the origin of the Universe, the history of galaxies and the ices in star-forming clouds.

NASA · 2024

Europa

A NASA mission on its way to Jupiter, where it will make dozens of close flybys of the moon Europa to judge whether its buried ocean could support life.

CAS · 2024

Low Earth orbit

A Chinese Academy of Sciences mission, with ESA and German partners, that watches wide areas of the sky for sudden bursts of X-rays from events such as stars torn apart by black holes.

NASA · 2023

Psyche

A NASA mission on its way to Psyche, a metal-rich asteroid that may be the exposed core of an early planet. It is due to arrive in 2029.

JAXA · 2023

Moon

Japan's first Moon lander, which demonstrated a pinpoint landing within about 55 metres of its target near Shioli crater. It touched down tilted onto its nose but survived three lunar nights.

NASA/JAXA · 2023

Low Earth orbit

A JAXA and NASA X-ray observatory that measures the energy of X-rays with great precision, revealing the temperature, composition and motion of hot gas around black holes and in galaxy clusters.

ISRO · 2023

Moon

An ISRO mission that made India the fourth country to soft-land on the Moon and the first to land near its south pole. The lander and rover operated for one lunar day.

ESA · 2023

Sun–Earth L2

An ESA mission mapping the shapes and distances of billions of galaxies across a third of the sky, to study dark matter and dark energy.

ESA · 2023

Jupiter, Ganymede

An ESA mission on its way to Jupiter to study three of its icy moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. It is planned to become the first spacecraft to orbit a moon other than our own.

NASA/ESA/CSA · 2021

Sun–Earth L2

Infrared space telescope located at the Sun-Earth L2 point.

NASA/ASI · 2021

Didymos, Dimorphos

The first planetary defence test. NASA deliberately crashed the spacecraft into Dimorphos, the small moon of the asteroid Didymos, and shortened its orbit by 32 minutes.

NASA · 2021

Dinkinesh, Donaldjohanson

A NASA mission on a twelve-year tour of the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit. On the way it has flown past two main-belt asteroids, finding that the first, Dinkinesh, has a small moon.

CNSA · 2020

Moon

A CNSA mission that returned 1,731 grams of lunar samples from Oceanus Procellarum in December 2020, the first brought back since 1976.

NASA · 2020

Mars

A NASA mission exploring Jezero crater for signs of ancient microbial life and collecting rock samples for possible return to Earth.

CNSA · 2020

Mars

China's first independent mission to Mars, which succeeded in orbiting, landing and deploying a rover in a single attempt.

MBRSC · 2020

Mars

The first interplanetary mission by an Arab nation. From a high orbit it tracks Martian weather through the whole day and across the seasons.

DLR/Roscosmos · 2019

Sun–Earth L2

A Russian-German X-ray observatory at the Sun–Earth L2 point, built to survey the whole sky. The German eROSITA telescope was switched to safe mode in February 2022; the Russian ART-XC telescope continues to observe.

SpaceIL · 2019

Moon

The first privately funded mission to attempt a Moon landing, built by the Israeli non-profit SpaceIL with Israel Aerospace Industries. A main-engine failure during descent caused it to crash.

CNSA · 2018

Moon

A CNSA mission that made the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, in Von Kármán crater, relaying its data through the Queqiao satellite.

ESA/JAXA · 2018

Mercury

A joint ESA and JAXA mission carrying two orbiters to Mercury, on a cruise of eight years with flybys of Earth, Venus and Mercury itself.

NASA/DLR/CNES · 2018

Mars

A NASA lander that listened to the interior of Mars, recording more than 1,300 marsquakes and measuring the size of the planet's core.

NASA · 2018

High Earth orbit

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which watches the brightest nearby stars for planets crossing in front of them. It has found thousands of candidate planets across almost the whole sky.

NASA · 2016

Bennu

A NASA mission that collected 121 grams of material from the asteroid Bennu and delivered it to Earth in September 2023. The spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX, is now on its way to the asteroid Apophis.

ESA/Roscosmos · 2016

Mars

A joint ESA and Roscosmos mission to map trace gases such as methane in the Martian atmosphere. It also carried the Schiaparelli landing demonstrator, which crashed on arrival.