The Pioneer programs were two series of United States lunar and planetary space probes exploration. The first program, which ran from 1958 to 1960, unsuccessfully attempted to send spacecraft to orbit the Moon, successfully sent one spacecraft to fly by the Moon, and successfully sent one spacecraft to investigate interplanetary space between the orbits of Earth and Venus. The second program, which ran from 1965 to 1992, sent four spacecraft to measure interplanetary space weather, two to explore Jupiter and Saturn, and two to explore Venus. The two outer planet probes, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, became the first two of five artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity that will allow them to leave the Solar System, and carried a golden plaque each depicting a man and a woman and information about the origin and the creators of the probes, in case any extraterrestrials find them someday.
Pioneer 10 is a NASA space probe launched in 1972 that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. Pioneer 10 became the first of five planetary probes and 11 artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System. This space exploration project was conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center in California. The space probe was manufactured by TRW Inc.
Mariner 1, built to conduct the first American planetary flyby of Venus, was the first spacecraft of NASA's interplanetary Mariner program. Developed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and originally planned to be a purpose-built probe launched summer 1962, Mariner 1's design was changed when the Centaur proved unavailable at that early date. Mariner 1, were then adapted from the lighter Ranger lunar spacecraft. Mariner 1 carried a suite of experiments to determine the temperature of Venus as well to measure magnetic fields and charged particles near the planet and in interplanetary space.
A Van Allen radiation belt is a zone of energetic charged particles, most of which originate from the solar wind, that are captured by and held around a planet by that planet's magnetosphere. Earth has two such belts, and sometimes others may be temporarily created. The belts are named after James Van Allen, who is credited with their discovery.
Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States in 1958 and was part of the U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The mission followed the first two satellites the previous year; the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2, beginning the Cold War Space Race between the two nations.
Pioneer 0 was a failed United States space probe that was designed to go into orbit around the Moon, carrying a television camera, a micrometeorite detector and a magnetometer. It was part of the first International Geophysical Year (IGY) science payload. It was designed and operated by the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division as the first spacecraft in the Pioneer program and was the first attempted launch beyond Earth orbit by any country, but the rocket failed shortly after launch. The probe was intended to be called Pioneer, but the launch failure precluded that name.
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.
Luna 1, also known as Mechta, E-1 No.4 and First Lunar Rover, was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of Earth's Moon, and the first spacecraft to be placed in heliocentric orbit. Intended as an impactor, Luna 1 was launched as part of the Soviet Luna programme in 1959.
Luna 2, originally named the Second Soviet Cosmic Rocket and nicknamed Lunik 2 in contemporaneous media, was the sixth of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon, E-1 No.7. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, and the first human-made object to make contact with another celestial body.
Pioneer 4 was an American spin-stabilized uncrewed spacecraft launched as part of the Pioneer program on a lunar flyby trajectory and into a heliocentric orbit making it the first probe of the United States to escape from the Earth's gravity. Launched on March 3, 1959, it carried a payload similar to Pioneer 3: a lunar radiation environment experiment using a Geiger–Müller tube detector and a lunar photography experiment. It passed within 58,983 km (36,650 mi) of the Moon's surface. However, Pioneer 4 did not come close enough to trigger its photoelectric sensor. The spacecraft was still in solar orbit as of 1969. It was the only successful lunar probe launched by the U.S. in 12 attempts between 1958 and 1963; only in 1964 would Ranger 7 surpass its success by accomplishing all of its mission objectives.
Luna 9 (Луна-9), internal designation Ye-6 No.13, was an uncrewed space mission of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. On 3 February 1966, the Luna 9 spacecraft became the first spacecraft to achieve a survivable landing on a celestial body.
Explorer 4 was an American satellite launched on 26 July 1958. It was instrumented by Dr. James van Allen's group. The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) had initially planned two satellites for the purposes of studying the Van Allen radiation belts and the effects of nuclear explosions upon these belts, however Explorer 4 was the only such satellite launched as the other, Explorer 5, suffered launch failure.
James Alfred Van Allen was an American space scientist at the University of Iowa. He was instrumental in establishing the field of magnetospheric research in space.
Explorer 3 was an American artificial satellite launched into medium Earth orbit in 1958. It was the second successful launch in the Explorer program, and was nearly identical to the first U.S. satellite Explorer 1 in its design and mission.
A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959.
The exploration of Jupiter has been conducted via close observations by automated spacecraft. It began with the arrival of Pioneer 10 into the Jovian system in 1973, and, as of 2023, has continued with eight further spacecraft missions in the vicinity of Jupiter. All of these missions were undertaken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and all but two were flybys taking detailed observations without landing or entering orbit. These probes make Jupiter the most visited of the Solar System's outer planets as all missions to the outer Solar System have used Jupiter flybys. On 5 July 2016, spacecraft Juno arrived and entered the planet's orbit—the second craft ever to do so. Sending a craft to Jupiter is difficult, mostly due to large fuel requirements and the effects of the planet's harsh radiation environment.
Spacecraft magnetometers are magnetometers used aboard spacecraft and satellites, mostly for scientific investigations, plus attitude sensing. Magnetometers are among the most widely used scientific instruments in exploratory and observation satellites. These instruments were instrumental in mapping the Van Allen radiation belts around Earth after its discovery by Explorer 1, and have detailed the magnetic fields of the Earth, Moon, Sun, Mars, Venus and other planets and moons. There are ongoing missions using magnetometers, including attempts to define the shape and activity of Saturn's core.
JunoCam is the visible-light camera/telescope onboard NASA's Juno spacecraft currently orbiting Jupiter. The camera is operated by the JunoCam Digital Electronics Assembly (JDEA). Both the camera and JDEA were built by Malin Space Science Systems. JunoCam takes a swath of imaging as the spacecraft rotates; the camera is fixed to the spacecraft, so as it rotates, it gets one sweep of observation. It has a field of view of 58 degrees with four filters.
Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (4M) was the first private lunar probe to successfully fly by the Moon. It was led by LuxSpace, a child company of German OHB System, and named in honor of OHB Systems founder, Manfred Fuchs, who died in 2014. It was launched with the Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 test spacecraft on 23 October 2014. The lunar flyby took place on 28 October 2014, after which the spacecraft entered elliptical Earth orbit and continued transmission until 11 November 2014, exceeding its designed lifetime by four times.
