Mission Archive

NASA/ESA/CSA · 2021

Sun–Earth L2

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

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 · 2001

Sun–Earth L2

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, which mapped the cosmic microwave background from the Sun–Earth L2 point. It fixed the age of the Universe at about 13.8 billion years and measured its mix of ordinary matter, dark matter and dark energy.

NASA · 1989

Low Earth orbit

The Cosmic Background Explorer, which measured the faint glow left over from the Big Bang and showed it has an almost perfect black-body spectrum with tiny temperature variations. The work earned the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics.

NASA/ESA/SERC · 1978

High Earth orbit

The International Ultraviolet Explorer, run jointly by NASA, ESA and the United Kingdom. Planned for three years, it worked for nearly nineteen and was the first space telescope astronomers could operate in real time.