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.

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.

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.

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.

NASA · 2020

Mars

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

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.

NASA/JAXA · 2016

Low Earth orbit

A JAXA X-ray observatory built with NASA. It broke apart five weeks after launch when a software error set it spinning out of control, but had already measured the motion of hot gas in the Perseus galaxy cluster.

NASA · 2012

Low Earth orbit

The first telescope to focus high-energy X-rays, used to study black holes, exploded stars and the hottest regions around them.

NASA · 2011

Mars

A NASA mission that landed the Curiosity rover in Gale crater in 2012, where it found that Mars once had lakes and streams able to support microbial life.

NASA · 2011

Jupiter

A NASA orbiter studying Jupiter's interior, magnetic field and polar regions from a looping polar orbit. It is the first solar-powered spacecraft to operate at Jupiter.

NASA · 2009

Low Earth orbit

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which surveyed the whole sky in infrared light. After its coolant ran out it was revived as NEOWISE to find and track asteroids and comets near the Earth.

NASA · 2009

Moon

A NASA orbiter that has mapped the Moon in detail since 2009, imaging the Apollo landing sites and measuring temperatures in permanently shadowed craters.

NASA · 2009

Heliocentric orbit

A NASA space telescope that watched for the slight dimming of stars as planets crossed in front of them, discovering more than 2,600 exoplanets.

NASA · 2008

Low Earth orbit

A NASA observatory that surveys the whole sky in gamma rays every three hours, studying pulsars, black-hole jets and gamma-ray bursts.

NASA · 2007

Vesta, Ceres

The first spacecraft to orbit two different worlds beyond Earth, the giant asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres, made possible by ion propulsion.

NASA · 2007

Mars

A NASA lander that touched down in the Martian arctic, dug into the soil and confirmed water ice just below the surface.

NASA · 2006

Jupiter, Pluto, Arrokoth

The first spacecraft to explore Pluto, flying past it and its moon Charon in July 2015, and later the small Kuiper belt object Arrokoth, the most distant world ever visited.

NASA · 2005

Mars

A NASA orbiter that has studied Mars since 2006 with the most powerful camera ever sent to another planet, and relays most of the data from the rovers on the surface.

NASA · 2005

Tempel 1, Hartley 2

A NASA mission that fired a 372 kg impactor into comet Tempel 1 to expose material from beneath its surface. The flyby spacecraft later visited a second comet, Hartley 2, as the EPOXI mission.