Mariner-H, also commonly known as Mariner 8, was part of the Mariner Mars '71 project. It was intended to go into Mars orbit and return images and data, but a launch vehicle failure prevented Mariner 8 from achieving Earth orbit and the spacecraft reentered into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after launch.
Pioneer 2 was the last of the three project Able space probes designed to probe lunar and cislunar space. The launch took place at 07:30:21 GMT on 8 November 1958. After Pioneer 1 had failed due to guidance system deficiencies, the guidance system was modified with a Doppler command system to ensure more accurate commands and minimize trajectory errors. Once again, the first and second stage portion of the flight was uneventful, but the third stage of the launch vehicle failed to ignite, making it impossible for Pioneer 2 to achieve orbital velocity. An attempt to fire the vernier engines on the probe was unsuccessful and the spacecraft attained a maximum altitude of 1,550 km (960 mi) before reentering Earth's atmosphere at 28.7° N, 1.9° E over NW Africa. A small amount of data was obtained during the short flight, including evidence that the equatorial region around Earth has higher flux and higher energy radiation than previously considered and that the micrometeorite density is higher around Earth than in space. The reason for the third stage failure was unclear, but it was suspected that the firing command from the second stage, which contained the guidance package for the entire launch vehicle, was never received, possibly due to damage to electrical lines during staging.
Pioneer 1 was an American space probe, the first under the auspices of NASA, which was launched by a Thor-Able rocket on 11 October 1958. It was intended to orbit the Moon and make scientific measurements, but due to a guidance error failed to achieve lunar orbit and was ultimately destroyed upon reentering Earth's atmosphere. The flight, which lasted 43 hours and reached an apogee of 113,800 km, was the second and most successful of the three Thor-Able space probes.
Pioneer P-30 was intended to be a lunar orbiter probe, but the mission failed shortly after launch on September 25, 1960. The objectives were to place a highly instrumented probe in lunar orbit, to investigate the environment between the Earth and Moon, and to develop technology for controlling and maneuvering spacecraft from Earth. It was equipped to estimate the Moon's mass and topography of the poles, record the distribution and velocity of micrometeorites, and study radiation, magnetic fields, and low frequency electromagnetic waves in space. A mid-course propulsion system and injection rocket would have been the first United States self-contained propulsion system capable of operation many months after launch at great distances from Earth and the first U.S. tests of maneuvering a satellite in space.
The Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) was a NASA Discovery-class space probe that failed shortly after its July 2002 launch. It was the only Discovery mission to fail.
Apollo 6, also known as AS-502, was the third and final uncrewed flight in the United States' Apollo Program and the second test of the Saturn V launch vehicle. It qualified the Saturn V for use on crewed missions, and it was used beginning with Apollo 8 in December 1968.
Vanguard 3 is a scientific satellite that was launched into Earth orbit by the Vanguard SLV-7 on 18 September 1959, the third successful Vanguard launch out of eleven attempts. Vanguard rocket: Vanguard Satellite Launch Vehicle-7 (SLV-7) was an unused Vanguard TV-4BU rocket, updated to the final production Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV).
Explorer 2 was an American unmanned space mission within the Explorer program. Intended to be a repetition of the previous Explorer 1 mission, which placed a satellite into medium Earth orbit, the spacecraft was unable to reach orbit due to a failure in the launch vehicle during launch.
Explorer 7 was a NASA satellite launched on 13 October 1959, at 15:30:04 GMT, by a Juno II launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) to an orbit of 573 × 1,073 km (356 × 667 mi) and inclination of 50.27°. It was designed to measure solar X-ray and Lyman-alpha flux, trapped energetic particles, and heavy primary cosmic rays. Secondary objectives included collecting data on micrometeoroid penetration, molecular sputtering and studying the Earth-atmosphere heat balance.
Transition Region and Coronal Explorer was a NASA heliophysics and solar observatory designed to investigate the connections between fine-scale magnetic fields and the associated plasma structures on the Sun by providing high resolution images and observation of the solar photosphere, the transition region, and the solar corona. A main focus of the TRACE instrument is the fine structure of coronal loops low in the solar atmosphere. TRACE is the third spacecraft in the Small Explorer program, launched on 2 April 1998, and obtained its last science image on 21 June 2010, at 23:56 UTC.
Kosmos 111, E-6S No.204, was the first Soviet attempt to orbit a spacecraft around the Moon. The design was similar to the future successful Luna 10 spacecraft. Kosmos 111 was produced in less than a month, one of two spacecraft developed from the E-6 lander bus in a crash program to upstage America's Lunar Orbiter series and to commemorate the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), held in March 1966.
The Heat Capacity Mapping Mission (HCMM) spacecraft was the first of a series of Applications Explorer Mission (AEM) of the Explorer program.
Explorer S-56 was a NASA satellite launched on 4 December 1960, at 21:14 GMT as part of the Explorer program. The satellite was composed of a 3.66 m (12.0 ft) diameter inflatable sphere, and was intended to study the density of the upper atmosphere. The Scout X-1 rocket used to launch Explorer S-56 failed in flight, and the satellite never reached orbit.
Explorer S-1, also known as NASA S-1 or Explorer 7X, was a NASA Earth science satellite equipped with a suite of scientific instruments to study the environment around the Earth. The spacecraft and its Juno II launch vehicle were destroyed five seconds after launch on 16 July 1959, in a spectacular launch failure caused by complications with the launch vehicle's power supply. A relaunch of the mission in October 1959, Explorer 7 (S-1A), was successful.
Explorer S-46 was a NASA satellite with a mass of 41 kg (90 lb). It was the last of the original series of Explorer satellites built, designed, and operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA).
Explorer 13,, was a NASA satellite launched as part of the Explorer program on 25 August 1961, at 18:29:44 GMT, from Wallops Flight Facility (WFF), Virginia.
Explorer 16, also called S-55B, was a NASA satellite launched as part of the Explorer program. Explorer 16 was launched on 16 December 1962, at 14:33:04 GMT, from Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, with a Scout X-3.
Explorer 22 was a small NASA ionospheric research satellite launched 9 October 1964, part of NASA's Explorer Program. It was instrumented with an electrostatic probe, four radio beacons for ionospheric research, a passive laser tracking reflector, and two radio beacons for Doppler navigation experiments. Its objective was to provide enhanced geodetic measurements of the Earth as well as data on the total electron content in the Earth's atmosphere and in the satellite's immediate vicinity.
Explorer 23 was the last of three S-55 NASA micrometeoroid satellites launched as part of the Explorer program. Its purpose was to obtain data on the near-earth meteoroid environment, thus providing an accurate estimate of the probability of penetration in spacecraft structures by meteoroids and allowing a more confident definition of the penetration flux-material thickness relation to be derived.
Explorer 46,, was a NASA satellite launched as part of Explorer program.
