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Sputnik, Gemini, and Mercury Programs
Sputnik was the only program not funded by NASA, it was funded by the Soviet Union. This program was the first satellite sent into orbit. Mercruy was the U.S. response to the man-in-space race, and Gemini was a prgram to allow two men to fit in the same spacecraft. All of these programs were smaller programs in the beginning of when the "Space Race" started. -
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Pioneer Program
The Pioneers were a series of unmanned spacecrafts sent to space to help understand the substances which makes up the observable universe. They contributed further knowledge of the outer parts of the solar system. -
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Venera Probes
These probes, funded and run by the Soviet Union, were sent out to explore Venus. Of the 16 probes sent out, only some succeeded their missions. The project was later shut down for the lack of funding. -
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Mariner Program
This 554 million dollar project, funded by NASA, was made to obtain pictures of Mars, Venus, and Mercury. The first succesful launch was Mariner 2 on August 27, 1962. -
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Viking Probes
The Viking Propes were two probes (Viking I and Viking II) sent to Mars to collect information about the geography, climate, and water/life potential. It was the first mission to land on Mars, and the two probes ran for much longer than expected. We did not learn about any life forms, or the existence of them in the past, yet there was no proof to say that there could not have been. In order to learn and infer things about other planets, we needed to explore this one, as we succesfully did. -
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Space Stations
The Space Stations are places for humans to go, in outer space, and have as a secondary base. This idea was first succesfully done by the Russians, on April 19, 1971. Other countries succeeded in doing the same thing, the ISS (International Space Station) was completed by joining all these stations together in 2011 -
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Voyager Probes
The voyager probes were spacecrafts meant to explore many different planets and celestial bodies of our solar system, in order to learn more about how it works and interacts with itself. Voyager 1 clocked in at a cost of 250 million US dollars, and the project is still running. -
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Space Shuttle
It was a program of 5 space shuttles, that flew close to Mars, as close we could get to the Sun, as well as Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter. It created a more effecient way to travel through space. -
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Magellan Spacecraft
This spacecraft was made to explore and gather inforamtion about Venus. It mapped out most of Venus' surface in HD quality images, while also gathering information about its atmosphere. It later crash-landed into the surface of Venus, and then burned up there. We also learned what the gravity of Venus was precisely. -
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Galileo Spacecraft
This spacecraft collected information about Jupiter and its Moons. Galileo reached Jupiter on December 7th, 1995 and it crashed on September 21st, 2003, ending the mission. -
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Hubble Space Telescope
This space telescope project, created by NASA and the European Space agency, was essentially a telescope that is in space, which illiminates the element of an atmosphere. Now, scientists do not have to look through the Earth's atmosphere when looking at distant stars, which is very benifitial since the air and dust particles in Earth's air obstructs normal telescopes' vision. Therefore scientists can now see clearer and further with the space telescope. -
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N.E.A.R. Mission
This mission was made to "answer questions about the nature and origin of many asteroids and comets close to Earth's orbit." The mission was ended when NASA lost signal with the spacecraft, and towards the end of the mission they made an attempt to land on an asteroid. -
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Cassini Mission
17 countries were involved in creating the mission, meant to explore Saturn's biggest moon; Titan. It is predicted to run until September of 2017. -
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Genesis Spacecraft
This spacecraft was made by NASA in order to collect information about solar winds. Through the funding of 264 million dollars the spacecraft was in orbit with the sun for 886 days, and then returned to Earth. It crash-landed in Utah in 2004 and the information about the solar wind was released to scientists for anylization. -
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Mars Exploration Rovers
The rovers Spirit and Opportunity were part of a program to explore Mars. Scientists at NASA wanted to learn more about the history of Mars' climate, as well as how it has been worn down, etc. They also wanted to learn more about the content of water, and possibility of life on this not so distant planet.