Deep Space 1 (DS1) was a NASA technology demonstration spacecraft which flew by an asteroid and a comet. It was part of the New Millennium Program,dedicated to testing advanced technologies.
Pioneer 11 is a NASA robotic space probe launched on April 5,1973,to study the asteroid belt,the environment around Jupiter and Saturn,the solar wind,and cosmic rays. It was the first probe to encounter Saturn,the second to fly through the asteroid belt,and the second to fly by Jupiter. Later,Pioneer 11 became the second of five artificial objects to achieve an escape velocity allowing it to leave the Solar System. Due to power constraints and the vast distance to the probe,the last routine contact with the spacecraft was on September 30,1995,and the last good engineering data was received on November 24,1995.
Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20,1977,as a part of the Voyager program. It was launched on a trajectory towards the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn and enabled further encounters with the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. It remains the only spacecraft to have visited either of the ice giant planets,and was the third of five spacecraft to achieve Solar escape velocity,which allowed it to leave the Solar System. Launched 16 days before its twin Voyager 1,the primary mission of the spacecraft was to study the outer planets and its extended mission is to study interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere.
Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous –Shoemaker,renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker,was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA to study the near-Earth asteroid Eros from close orbit over a period of a year. It was the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid and land on it successfully. In February 2000,the mission closed in on the asteroid and orbited it. On February 12,2001,Shoemaker touched down on the asteroid and was terminated just over two weeks later.
Mariner 10 was an American robotic space probe launched by NASA on 3 November 1973,to fly by the planets Mercury and Venus. It was the first spacecraft to perform flybys of multiple planets.
The Voyager program is an American scientific program that employs two interstellar probes,Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment to explore the two gas giants Jupiter and Saturn and potentially also the ice giants,Uranus and Neptune - to fly near them while collecting data for transmission back to Earth. After Voyager 1 successfully completed its flyby of Saturn and its moon Titan,it was decided to send Voyager 2 on flybys of Uranus and Neptune.
Giotto was a European robotic spacecraft mission from the European Space Agency. The spacecraft flew by and studied Halley's Comet and in doing so became the first spacecraft to make close up observations of a comet. On 13 March 1986,the spacecraft succeeded in approaching Halley's nucleus at a distance of 596 kilometers. It was named after the Early Italian Renaissance painter Giotto di Bondone. He had observed Halley's Comet in 1301 and was inspired to depict it as the star of Bethlehem in his painting Adoration of the Magi in the Scrovegni Chapel.
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.
Vega 1 was a Soviet space probe,part of the Vega program. The spacecraft was a development of the earlier Venera craft. They were designed by Babakin Space Centre and constructed as 5VK by Lavochkin at Khimki. The name VeGa (ВеГа) combines the first two letters from the Russian words for Venus and Halley.
The Vega program was a series of Venus missions that also took advantage of the appearance of comet 1P/Halley in 1986. Vega 1 and Vega 2 were uncrewed spacecraft launched in a cooperative effort among the Soviet Union and Austria,Bulgaria,France,Hungary,the German Democratic Republic,Poland,Czechoslovakia,and the Federal Republic of Germany in December 1984. They had a two-part mission to investigate Venus and also flyby Halley's Comet.
Vega 2 was a Soviet space probe part of the Vega program to explore Halley's comet and Venus. The spacecraft was a development of the earlier Venera craft. The name VeGa (ВеГа) combines the first two letters of the Russian words for Venus and Halley. They were designed by Babakin Space Centre and constructed as 5VK by Lavochkin at Khimki. The craft was powered by large twin solar panels. Instruments included an antenna dish,cameras,spectrometer,infrared sounder,magnetometers (MISCHA) and plasma probes. The 4,840 kilograms (10,670 lb) craft was launched on top of a Proton-K from Baikonur Cosmodrome,Tyuratam,Kazakh SSR. Both Vega 1 and 2 were three-axis stabilized spacecraft. The spacecraft were equipped with a dual bumper shield for dust protection from Halley's Comet.
Stardust was a 385-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on 7 February 1999. Its primary mission was to collect dust samples from the coma of comet Wild 2,as well as samples of cosmic dust,and return them to Earth for analysis. It was the first sample return mission of its kind. En route to Comet Wild 2,it also flew by and studied the asteroid 5535 Annefrank. The primary mission was successfully completed on 15 January 2006 when the sample return capsule returned to Earth.
Sakigake,known before launch as MS-T5,was Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the US or the Soviet Union. It aimed to demonstrate the performance of the new launch vehicle,test its ability to escape from Earth gravity,and observe the interplanetary medium and magnetic field. Sakigake was also supposed to act as a frame of reference for data received from probes that flew closer to Halley's Comet. Early measurements would be used to improve the mission of the Suisei probe launched several months later.
Nozomi was a Japanese Mars orbiter that failed to reach Mars due to electrical failure. It was constructed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science,University of Tokyo and launched on July 4,1998,at 03:12 JST with an on-orbit dry mass of 258 kg and 282 kg of propellant. The Nozomi mission was terminated on December 31,2003.
MESSENGER was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015,studying Mercury's chemical composition,geology,and magnetic field. The name is a backronym for Mercury Surface,Space Environment,Geochemistry,and Ranging,and a reference to the messenger god Mercury from Roman mythology.
Deep Impact was a NASA space probe launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on January 12,2005. It was designed to study the interior composition of the comet Tempel 1 (9P/Tempel),by releasing an impactor into the comet. At 05:52 UTC on July 4,2005,the Impactor successfully collided with the comet's nucleus. The impact excavated debris from the interior of the nucleus,forming an impact crater. Photographs taken by the spacecraft showed the comet to be more dusty and less icy than had been expected. The impact generated an unexpectedly large and bright dust cloud,obscuring the view of the impact crater.
The Solar Orbiter (SolO) is a Sun-observing probe developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) with a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contribution. Solar Orbiter,designed to obtain detailed measurements of the inner heliosphere and the nascent solar wind,will also perform close observations of the polar regions of the Sun which is difficult to do from Earth. These observations are important in investigating how the Sun creates and controls its heliosphere.
The International Cometary Explorer (ICE) spacecraft,designed and launched as the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) satellite,was launched on 12 August 1978 into a heliocentric orbit. It was one of three spacecraft,along with the mother/daughter pair of ISEE-1 and ISEE-2,built for the International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE) program,a joint effort by NASA and ESRO/ESA to study the interaction between the Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind.
The Halley Armada is the name of a series of space probes,five of which were successful,sent to examine Halley's Comet during its 1986 sojourn through the inner Solar System,connected with apparition "1P/1982 U1". The armada included one probe from the European Space Agency,two probes that were joint projects between the Soviet Union and France and two probes from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Japan. Notably,NASA did not contribute a probe to the Halley Armada.
A flyby is a spaceflight operation in which a spacecraft passes in proximity to another body,usually a target of its space exploration mission and/or a source of a gravity assist to impel it towards another target. Spacecraft which are specifically designed for this purpose are known as flyby spacecraft,although the term has also been used in regard to asteroid flybys of Earth for example. Important parameters are the time and distance of closest approach.
