Uncategorized Probes

(Hale-Bopp Comet)

(Pluto-Charon)

There are a few probes which don't fit the same classification as the others. Their main objective is asteroids, comets, or dwarf planets, not the sun, moon, or planets. Not mentioned here is Galileo (primarily a Jupiter probe).

International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 (Explorer 59, International Cometary Explorer, ICE, International Sun-Earth Explorer-C, ISEE-C) (USA) 12 August 1978. Launched as ISEE 3, it was first kept at the Lagrangian point between the Earth and the Sun. ISEE 3 was then moved from this orbit and made transits through the Earth's geomagnetic tail from September 1982 until December 22, 1983, when it made a very close swing-by of the Moon and began its cometary mission (and was given the new name ICE for International Cometary Explorer) to the comet Giacobini-Zinner. Operations terminated on May 5, 1997. It remains in a heliospheric orbit.
Vega 1 (USSR) 15 December 1984. A probe which dropped off components at Venus while on the way to a rendezvous with Halley's comet on 6 March 1986. Now in solar orbit.
Vega 2 (USSR) 21 December 1984. A probe which dropped off components at Venus while on the way to a rendezvous with Halley's comet on 9 March 1986. Now in solar orbit.
SS-10 Sakigake ( MS-T5, Pioneer) (Japan) 7 January 1985. Japanese flyby of Halley's comet at about 7 million kilometers on 11 March 1986.
Giotto (ESA) 2 July 1985. European probe to comet Halley (596 km on 13 March 1986) and comet Grigg-Skjellerup (200 km on 10 July 1992).
SS-11 Suisei (Comet, Planet-A) (Japan) 18 August 1985. Japanese flyby of Halley's comet (151,000 km on 8 March 1986).
NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) (USA) 17 February 1996. Explores near Earth asteroids. A controlled crash landing on Asteroid 433 Eros was successfully executed on February 12, 2001. Data was returned for several days thereafter. Final communication came on February 28, 2001.
Deep Space 1 (DS1, New Millennium DS1) (USA) 24 October 1998. During a highly successful primary mission, it tested 12 advanced, high-risk technologies in space. In an extremely successful extended mission, it encountered Comet Borrelly (September 22, 2001) and returned the best images and other science data ever from a comet. During its fully successful hyperextended mission, it conducted further technology tests. The spacecraft was retired on December 18, 2001. It remains in solar orbit.
Stardust ( Stardust Sample Return) (USA) 7 February 1999. This probe collected dust from Comet Wild 2 (encountered on January 2, 2004) and successfully returned the samples to Earth on 15 January 2006. The Stardust vehicle itself remains in a solar orbit. It was turned off on 24 March 2011.
WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) (USA) 30 June 2001. This spacecraft headed for Lagrange point 2 where it arrived October 1, 2001. It is in a somewhat stable position on a line from the sun to the earth to the probe (approximately 1.5 million km from the Earth).
Microwave Sky Image from WMAP
Contour (Comet Nucleus Tour) (USA) 3 July 2002. The spacecraft was to fly within 62 miles of the inner core of at least two comets. It remained in Earth orbit until August 15, 2002, when it disappeared after the engines were fired to send it into deep space. It is assumed to have disintegrated.
Muses-C (renamed Hayabusa, or Falcon) (Japan) 9 May 2003. This Japanese spacecraft landed on the asteroid Itokawa 25 November 2005. The effort to collect samples succeeded. After the vehicle took off again, thruster problems put the vehicle in safe mode. Efforts to regain control were only partially successful, but the craft did return to Earth 13 June 2010.
Rosetta (ESA) 2 March 2004. Cometary probe which reached the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and landed a probe on 12 Nov 2014 after three flybys of the Earth and one of Mars.
Deep Impact (USA) 12 January 2005. Purpose was to study the interior composition of comet 9P/Tempel, which it did on 4 July 2005. Deep Impact was re-tasked to asteroid 163249, which it would have reached in 2020. Contact was lost 11 August 2013 and attempts to revive Deep Impact have been abandoned.
New Horizons (USA) 19 January 2006. Flew 2.3 million km of Jupiter (28 February 2007) and reached the Pluto/Charon system in 2015. There could also be other Kuiper Belt Object flybys around 2017. New Horizons is the fastest probe ever launched.
Dawn (USA) 27 September 2007. NASA planetary mission to visit two asteroids, Vesta and Ceres. A Mars fly-by (for gravity assist) took place in February 2009. Currently en route to Ceres.
Kepler (USA) 7 March 2009. Space telescope easing into an ecliptic heliocentric orbit. It will stare at a field in Cygnus, monitoring stars in a search for transiting planets.
IKAROS (Japan) 20 May 2010. (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun). Launched with Unitec-1 and Akatsuki. This is the first solar-powered spacecraft and used photon propulsion. It was placed in a Venus transfer orbit.
Unitec-1 (Japan) 20 May 2010. Used to test various technologies. Launched with IKAROS and Akatsuki. Also placed in a Venus transfer orbit.
Gaia (ESA) 19 December 2013. Gaia will operate from the L2 Lagrange point 900,000 miles from Earth. The five year mission beginning in the spring of 2014 is to survey of the cosmos, detecting every star, supernova, quasar, planet and asteroid brighter than 20th magnitude.
Hayabusa 2 (Japan) 3 December 2014. HayaBUSA 2 is heading for asteroid 1999 JU3 where it hopes to land in June 2018. The re-entry capsule landed in Australia 5 December 2020.
OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) (USA) 8 September 2016. NASA asteroid sample return mission. The probe contacted asterorid 101955 Bennu on 20 October 2020 and obtained a small sample. The sample was returned to Earth (Utah, USA) 24 September 2023. The mission was renamed OSIRIS-APEX and sent to observe 99942 Apophis.
Tesla Roadster (USA) 6 February 2018. Not actually a probe, but a Tesla Roadster car with a mannequin named Starman was launched into a heliocentric orbit by the first ever launch of a Falcon Heavy rocket. The orbit is 0.99 x 1.71 AU x 1.1 deg.
Lucy (USA) 16 October 2021. Lucy will be visiting the Trojan asteroids, a group of asteroids trailing and leading Jupiter in its orbit.

DART (USA) 23 November 2021. DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) is a test of a method to deflect near-earth objects. It is to collide with asteroid Dimorphos on 26 September 2022.
Psyche (USA) 13 October 2023. Psyche is a NASA mission to study a metal-rich asteroid with the same name, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This is NASA’s first mission to study an asteroid that has more metal than rock or ice.

Pluto and Charon
(Click to enlarge)
(Credit: NASA)

Pluto
(Click to enlarge)
(Credit: NASA)

Charon
(Click to enlarge)
(Credit: NASA)

Nix and Hydra
(Click to enlarge)
(Credit: NASA)

Page last modified: 04 November 2023 16:28:50.