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.

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/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/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.

ISRO · 2015

Low Earth orbit

India's first dedicated astronomy satellite, which observes the same target in ultraviolet, visible and X-ray light at the same time.

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 · 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 · 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.

ESA/CNES · 2006

Low Earth orbit

A French-led mission that was the first built to find planets by the dimming of their stars, and that also studied the vibrations of stars to probe their interiors.

NASA · 2004

Low Earth orbit

A NASA observatory that caught gamma-ray bursts and turned within about a minute to observe their afterglows in X-ray, ultraviolet and visible light. Built for a two-year mission, it observed more than 2,000 bursts over nearly 22 years, until atmospheric drag pulled it too low to point steadily.

NASA · 1991

Low Earth orbit

The second of NASA's Great Observatories, which studied the Universe in gamma rays and showed that gamma-ray bursts come from all directions in the sky. At 17 tonnes it was the heaviest astrophysics payload flown at the time.

NASA/DLR/SERC · 1990

Low Earth orbit

A German-led X-ray observatory, built with the United States and the United Kingdom, that made the first imaging X-ray survey of the whole sky and catalogued more than 150,000 sources.

NASA/ESA · 1990

Low Earth orbit

Space telescope capable of observing the universe in ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light.

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/SERC/NIVR · 1983

Low Earth orbit

The Infrared Astronomical Satellite, the first telescope to survey the whole sky in infrared light, flown jointly by the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In ten months it catalogued about 350,000 sources.

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.