 | This article needs to be updated.(January 2017) |
This is a partial list of artificial objects left on extraterrestrial surfaces.
| This article needs to be updated.(January 2017) |
This is a partial list of artificial objects left on extraterrestrial surfaces.
| Surface | Object | Mass | Owner | Landing | Location | Ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko | Philae | 100 kg (220 lb) |   ESA/DLR | 12 November 2014 | "Abydos" | ||
| Rosetta | 1,230 kg (2,710 lb) | ESA | 30 September 2016 | "Sais" | |||
| 433 Eros | NEAR Shoemaker | 487 kg (1,074 lb) |  NASA/APL | 12 February 2001 | South of Himeros crater | [1] | |
| 25143 Itokawa | Hayabusa target marker | 0.6 kg (1.3 lb)[ citation needed ] |  JAXA | 20 November 2005 | Muses Sea | [2] | |
| Mercury | MESSENGER | 1,108 kg (2,443 lb) | NASA/APL | 30 April 2015 | Suisei Planitia | ||
| 162173 Ryugu | MASCOT | 9.6 kg (21 lb) |  CNES/DLR | 3 October 2018 | Alice's Wonderland | [3] [4] [5] | |
| MINERVA-II Rover-1A | 1.1 kg (2.4 lb) | JAXA | 21 September 2018 | Tritonis | [6] [7] [5] | ||
| MINERVA-II Rover-1B | 1.1 kg (2.4 lb) | ||||||
| MINERVA-II Rover-2 | 1.0 kg (2.2 lb) | October 2019 | Unknown | [8] [9] | |||
| Hayabusa2 Small Carry-on Impactor | 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) | 5 April 2019 | "C01" | [10] [11] | |||
| Hayabusa2 Deployable Camera 3 | ≈2.0 kg (4.4 lb) | April 2019 | Unknown | [12] | |||
| Hayabusa2 Target Marker B | 0.3 kg (0.66 lb) | 25 October 2018 | "L08" | [13] | |||
| Hayabusa2 Target Marker A | 0.3 kg (0.66 lb) | 30 May 2019 | "S01" | [11] | |||
| Hayabusa2 Target Marker E | 0.3 kg (0.66 lb) | September 2019 | Unknown | [14] | |||
| Hayabusa2 Target Marker C | 0.3 kg (0.66 lb) | September 2019 | Unknown | [14] | |||
| 9P/Tempel | Deep Impact impactor | 372 kg (820 lb) | NASA/JPL | 4 July 2005 | |||
| Titan | Huygens lander | 319 kg (703 lb) | ESA | 14 January 2005 | Northeast of Adiri | [15] [16] | |
| Huygens heat shield | Unknown | ||||||
| Huygens parachute | Unknown | ||||||
| Dimorphos | Double Asteroid Redirection Test impactor | 570 kg (1,260 lb) | NASA/JHUAPL | 26 September 2022 | |||
| Surface | Total estimated mass of objects (kg) | Total estimated local weight of objects (N) |
|---|---|---|
| Churyumov–Gerasimenko | 100 | ? |
| Eros | 487 | ? |
| Itokawa | 0.591 | ? |
| Jupiter | 2,564 | 59,400 |
| Mars | 10,240 | 37,833 |
| Mercury | 507.9 | 1,881 |
| The Moon | 216,910 | 35,864 |
| Ryugu | 18.5 | ? |
| Saturn | 2,150 | 2,289.75 |
| Tempel 1 | 370 | 2.5 |
| Titan | 319 | 372 |
| Venus | 22,642 | 201,256 |
| Dimorphos | 570 | ? |
| Total | 254,842 | 613,408+ |
A lander is a spacecraft that descends towards, then comes to rest on the surface of an astronomical body other than Earth. In contrast to an impact probe, which makes a hard landing that damages or destroys the probe upon reaching the surface, a lander makes a soft landing after which the probe remains functional.
Hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis. Hayabusa, formerly known as MUSES-C for Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft C, was launched on 9 May 2003 and rendezvoused with Itokawa in mid-September 2005. After arriving at Itokawa, Hayabusa studied the asteroid's shape, spin, topography, color, composition, density, and history. In November 2005, it landed on the asteroid and collected samples in the form of tiny grains of asteroidal material, which were returned to Earth aboard the spacecraft on 13 June 2010.
25143 Itokawa (provisional designation 1998 SF36) is a sub-kilometer near-Earth object of the Apollo group and a potentially hazardous asteroid. It was discovered by the LINEAR program in 1998 and later named after Japanese rocket engineer Hideo Itokawa. The peanut-shaped S-type asteroid has a rotation period of 12.1 hours and measures approximately 330 meters (1,100 feet) in diameter. Due to its low density and high porosity, Itokawa is considered to be a rubble pile, consisting of numerous boulders of different sizes rather than of a single solid body.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orbit, and is involved in many more advanced missions such as asteroid exploration and possible human exploration of the Moon. Its motto is One JAXA and its corporate slogan is Explore to Realize.
A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as loose material and rocks. These samples may be obtained in a number of ways, such as soil and rock excavation or a collector array used for capturing particles of solar wind or cometary debris. Nonetheless, concerns have been raised that the return of such samples to planet Earth may endanger Earth itself.
Asteroids, including those in the asteroid belt, have been suggested as possible sites of space colonization. Motives include the survival of humanity, and the specific economic opportunity for asteroid mining. Obstacles include transportation distance, temperature, radiation, lack of gravity, and psychological issues.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to space exploration.
Hayabusa2 is an asteroid sample-return mission operated by the Japanese state space agency JAXA. It is a successor to the Hayabusa mission, which returned asteroid samples for the first time in June 2010. Hayabusa2 was launched on 3 December 2014 and rendezvoused in space with near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu on 27 June 2018. It surveyed the asteroid for a year and a half and took samples. It left the asteroid in November 2019 and returned the samples to Earth on 5 December 2020 UTC. Its mission has now been extended through at least 2031, when it will rendezvous with the small, rapidly-rotating asteroid 1998 KY26.
162173 Ryugu (provisional designation 1999 JU3) is a near-Earth object and a potentially hazardous asteroid of the Apollo group. It measures approximately 900 metres (3,000 ft) in diameter and is a dark object of the rare spectral type Cb, with qualities of both a C-type asteroid and a B-type asteroid. In June 2018, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 arrived at the asteroid. After making measurements and taking samples, Hayabusa2 left Ryugu for Earth in November 2019 and returned the sample capsule to Earth on 5 December 2020. The samples showed the presence of organic compounds, such as uracil (one of the four components in RNA) and vitamin B3.
OSIRIS-REx was a NASA asteroid-study and sample-return mission that visited and collected samples from 101955 Bennu, a carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid. The material, returned in September 2023, is expected to enable scientists to learn more about the formation and evolution of the Solar System, its initial stages of planet formation, and the source of organic compounds that led to the formation of life on Earth. Following the completion of the primary OSIRIS-REx mission, the spacecraft is planned to conduct a flyby of asteroid 99942 Apophis, renamed as OSIRIS-APEX.
A planetary surface is where the solid or liquid material of certain types of astronomical objects contacts the atmosphere or outer space. Planetary surfaces are found on solid objects of planetary mass, including terrestrial planets, dwarf planets, natural satellites, planetesimals and many other small Solar System bodies (SSSBs). The study of planetary surfaces is a field of planetary geology known as surface geology, but also a focus on a number of fields including planetary cartography, topography, geomorphology, atmospheric sciences, and astronomy. Land is the term given to non-liquid planetary surfaces. The term landing is used to describe the collision of an object with a planetary surface and is usually at a velocity in which the object can remain intact and remain attached.
Hayabusa Mk2 was a proposed Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) space mission aimed at visiting a small primitive asteroid and returning a sample to Earth for laboratory analysis. It was intended to be the follow-on mission to JAXA's Hayabusa mission, as well as the Hayabusa2 mission. The latest proposal for Hayabusa Mk2 stated its target to be the dormant comet 4015 Wilson–Harrington, with a launch of the probe in 2018. From 2007 to 2010, it was also considered as a joint JAXA-ESA mission under the name Marco Polo. The in-situ investigation and sample analysis would allow scientists to improve our knowledge of the physical and chemical properties of a small Near-Earth Object (NEO) which is thought to have kept the original composition of the solar nebula in which planet formed. Thus, it would provide some constraints to the models of planet formation and some information on how life may have been brought to Earth. Information on the physical structure will help defining efficient mitigation strategies against a potential threatening object.
MINERVA are a series of rovers developed by the Japanese space agency JAXA for the purpose of exploring asteroid surfaces. The first MINERVA was part of the Hayabusa mission, and MINERVA-II are a series of three rovers for Hayabusa2. On 12 November 2005, MINERVA rover was deployed from Hayabusa orbiter with aim to land on asteroid 25143 Itokawa. However, the landing failed as MINERVA missed the asteroid and ended up on heliocentric orbit. On 21 September 2018, first two MINERVA-II rovers successfully landed on asteroid 162173 Ryugu. The third MINERVA-II rover malfunctioned before deployment from the Hayabusa2 orbiter, but it was released anyway on 2 October 2019 to perform gravitational measurements before impacting the asteroid a few days later.
CAESAR is a sample-return mission concept to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The mission was proposed in 2017 to NASA's New Frontiers program mission 4, and on 20 December 2017 it was one of two finalists selected for further concept development. On 27 June 2019, the other finalist, the Dragonfly mission, was chosen instead.
The Planetary Material Sample Curation Facility (PMSCF), commonly known as the Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center is the facility where Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) conducts the curation works of extraterrestrial materials retrieved by some sample-return missions. They work closely with Japan's Astromaterials Science Research Group. Its objectives include documentation, preservation, preparation, and distribution of samples. All samples collected are made available for international distribution upon request.
NEAR Shoemaker now rests silently just to the south of the saddle-shaped feature Himeros...
...Sunday, November 20 (JST) JAXA received the signal that Hayabusa had carried out its task successfully [...] the target marker landed about six and a half minutes after it left Hayabusa, settling down just as planned in the nice flat region that the team dubbed Muses Sea...
The Hayabusa2 spacecraft's Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) will land at a site in the asteroid Ryugu's southern hemisphere dubbed MA-9...
A small European spacecraft, known as the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT), successfully landed on asteroid Ryugu on Wednesday, Oct. 3 [...] MASCOT weighs some 21 lbs. (9.6 kilograms)...
"N6" marks the likely drop zone for MINERVA-II, which will deploy four microrovers.
The rovers, each with a diameter of 18cm, height of 7cm and weight of about 1.1kg, were released from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft on Friday.
The Huygens probe parachuted down to the surface of Saturn's haze-shrouded moon Titan exactly five years ago on Jan. 14, 2005 [...] as it plunged through Titan's hazy atmosphere and landed near a region now known as Adiri.
Mass: 319 kg
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