NASA Missions

The Moon

APOLLO(1963 – 1972)

Goal: To put a man on the Moon

Apollo 8 and 10: Orbited Moon

Apollo 11 – 17 (except 13):Landed on Moon and returned

LEM

Command Module

The Outer Planets

Voyager 1 and 2

Goal: To study the OuterPlanets; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune

(1977 – present)

The Voyagers are now the most distant human-made objects.

Voyager 2 examined Jupiter and Saturn and then became the only spacecraft ever to visit Uranus and Neptune.

Jupiter

Galileo

Goal: To photograph and study Jupiter and its Moons, and follow-up on some of the discoveries of Voyager

1989 - 2003

Jupiter and Io

Io

Europa

Tvashtar New Horizons pic 2007

volcano

aurora

Asteroid Ida and satellite

Galileo took over 14000 pictures of Jupiter, its Moons, asteroids, the Earth and Moon

Saturn

Cassini1997 - present

Goal: To photograph and study Saturn and its Moons

Saturn and Mimas

Huygens

Cassini carried the ESA lander Huygens, which landed on the moon Titan in January, 2005

Mars

Mars Rovers

(2003 – present)

Spirit and Opportunity

Goal: To search for proof of water and signs of life

The Rovers landed on Mars in 2003 and have found proof that water once existed on Mars.

They have taken over 60000 pictures, roamed the planet, bored holes into rock and discovered what it is made of

CuriosityHuge Mars rover (weighs over a ton) launched 11/26/2011Arrived August 2012

Asteroids

Dawn (Sept. 2007 - )

Will orbit the two largest objects in the asteroid belt, Ceres and Vesta. It went into orbit around Vesta in 2011. Dawn has an “Ion Engine” which uses electromagnetism and Xenon gas to create plasma. It has accelerated the ship to 78,000 mph. It carries a camera and spectrometer.

Vesta 2011

MercuryMercury

Messenger

MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging

Launched: summer of 2004, started orbiting Mercury in 2011

Goal: To map Mercury

Comets

Comet Missions

Stardust (1999 – present): In 2004, flew through the debris of Comet Wild 2, collecting samples. It returned those to Earth in January, 2006. Those samples included the amino acid glycene, which is a building block of proteins.

Deep Impact (launched January, 2005): smashed a 820 lb. mass into comet Tempel 1 July, 2006, to observe the impact, crater, and analyze the ejecta.

Pluto

New Horizons

Launched Jan. 2006. Will arrive at Pluto in 2015. First spacecraft ever sent to Pluto, it will continue on to study Kuiper Belt objects through 2020.

Space Observatories

SOHO the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory

Carries 12 different scientific instruments, including spectroscopes, an ultraviolet camera and a oscillation detector.

Chandra

Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Looks at the Universe in X-rays

SN 1987a

Chandra

Hubble Space Telescope

Launched in 1990. Has a huge optical telescope, a wide field camera, an infrared spectrometer and a

spectrograph

Hubble’s replacement:

James Webb Space Telescope

Expected launch 2018. Big optical telescope with strong infrared capabilities

Fermi Gamma ray Large Area Space Telescope

Launched in 2008. Studying gamma rays with a precision never before seen over a wide viewing area, also allowing the detection of “gamma ray bursts”.

WISE / NEOWISE Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer

Launched in 2009. Took pictures of the whole sky in four different

bandwidths of infrared. It has identified hundreds of undiscovered

asteroids and comets, which could pose a threat to Earth. Put in

hibernation in 2011, reactivated in 2013 to look for NEOs.

WISE’s First Asteroid1/22/10

Kepler Searching a small area of the sky for planets

Launched March 2009. Continuously looking at 150,000 sun-likestars for changes in the amount of light, which would indicate planets.

International Space Station(2000 – present)The goal is to have a manned presence in space

Space Shuttle

Designed to save money as a reusable launch vehicle into space

Constellation & AresBack to the Moon 2020?

Ares carries cargoConstellation carriespeople to join up withAres