Mission Archive

NASA · 1975

Mars

The first American mission to land on Mars and the first to operate there for years. Its orbiter mapped the planet while the lander searched the soil for signs of life.

NASA · 1973

Venus, Mercury

The first spacecraft to visit Mercury and the first to use one planet's gravity to reach another, swinging past Venus on the way. It flew past Mercury three times and imaged almost half its surface.

NASA · 1973

Jupiter, Saturn

The second spacecraft to fly past Jupiter and the first to reach Saturn, passing within 21,000 km of its cloud tops in 1979.

NASA · 1972

Jupiter

The first spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt and fly past Jupiter, and the first sent on a path out of the Solar System.

NASA · 1971

Mars

The first spacecraft to orbit another planet. It waited out a global dust storm and then mapped the whole of Mars, revealing its volcanoes, canyons and dry riverbeds.

NASA · 1970

Low Earth orbit

The first satellite built specifically for X-ray astronomy. Launched from a platform off the coast of Kenya, it produced the first full catalogue of X-ray sources in the sky.

NASA · 1966

Moon

The first American spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon, returning more than 11,000 images from Oceanus Procellarum.

NASA · 1964

Mars

The first spacecraft to return close-up pictures of another planet, sending back 21 images of a cratered Mars from its flyby in July 1965.

NASA · 1962

Venus

The first spacecraft to fly past another planet and return data. Its measurements showed that Venus has a very hot surface beneath its clouds.