List of NASA missions

By Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASA_missions

This is a list of NASA missions, both manned and unmanned, since its establishment in 1958.

Human spaceflight

NASA has successfully launched over 100 manned flights. A number have ended in failure, in some cases causing the death of the crew, such as Apollo 1 in 1967, STS-51-L (the Challenger disaster) in 1986, and STS-107 (the Columbia disaster) in 2003:

Program	Start Date	End Date	No. of launched crewed missions	Notes
Mercury program	1959	1963	6	First U.S. crewed program
Gemini program	1963	1966	10	Program used to practice space rendezvous and EVAs
Apollo program	1961	1972	11^[1]	Brought first human to the Moon
Skylab	1973	1974	3	The crewed missions only took place in 1973 and 1974; first American space station
Apollo-Soyuz	1975	1975	1	Joint with Soviet Union, only one mission
Space Shuttle	1981	On-going	123	Currently active, first missions in which a spacecraft was reused; planned to end in 2010
Shuttle-Mir Program	1995	1998	9^[2]	Russian partnership
International Space Station	1998	On-going	19^[3]	Joint with Russia, Canada, ESA, and JAXA along with co-operators, ASI and Brazil
Project Constellation	Future	Future	0	Future program to once again bring humans to the Moon, Mars and beyond

^ - Apollo 1 was unlaunched due to a fire during testing that killed the astronauts, and is not counted here
^ - The Shuttle-Mir missions were all Space Shuttle missions, and are also counted under the Space Shuttle program missions in the table.
^ - The missions (International Space Station) counted here are only the NASA Space Shuttle missions, and are also counted under the Space Shuttle program missions in the table.

Future

On May 7, 2009 the Obama Administration announced the launch of an independent review of planned U.S. human space flight activities with the goal of ensuring that the nation is on a vigorous and sustainable path to achieving its boldest aspirations in space. The review will be conducted by a blue-ribbon panel of experts led by Norman Augustine, the former CEO of Lockheed Martin, who served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology under Democratic and Republican presidents.

The "Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans" is to examine ongoing and planned National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) development activities, as well as potential alternatives, and present options for advancing a safe, innovative, affordable, and sustainable human space flight program in the years following Space Shuttle retirement. The panel will work closely with NASA and will seek input from Congress, the White House, the public, industry, and international partners as it develops its options. It is to present its results in time to support an Administration decision on the way forward by August 2009.

Uncrewed missions

Lunar missions

Ranger
Surveyor
Lunar Orbiter
Clementine
Lunar Prospector
Moon Mineralogy Mapper (NASA instrument for ISRO's Chandraayan-1 spacecraft)
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
GRAIL (Planned for 2011)

Planetary missions

Mercury missions

Saturn missions

Pioneer 11

Voyager 1

Voyager 2

Cassini-Huygens together with ESA

Titan Saturn System Mission together with ESA (planned launch after 2020)

Uranus missions

Voyager 2

Neptune missions

Voyager 2

Pluto missions

New Horizons

Multi-planet missions

Pioneer 11 – Jupiter and Saturn
Mariner 10 – Venus and Mercury
Voyager 1 – Jupiter and Saturn
Voyager 2 – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
New Horizons – Jupiter, Pluto

Asteroidal/cometary missions

Interplanetary missions

Pioneer 6, 7, 8 and 9 – Solar wind, solar magnetic field and cosmic rays

Sun observing missions

Solar Maximum Mission
SOHO – ESA partnership
Ulysses – ESA partnership
STEREO
Solar Dynamics Observatory (Planned for 2010)

Earth satellites

Earth Observing

Space telescopes

Great Observatories program

Hubble Space Telescope – ESA partnership
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
Chandra X-ray Observatory
Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, SIRTF)

Other

Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)
Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE)
Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS)
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)
Uhuru
1st High Energy Astrophysics Observatory (HEAO 1)
Einstein Observatory (HEAO-2)
James Webb Space Telescope – ESA partnership (Planned for 2013)

Proposed missions

Glory (proposed)

Canceled missions

Canceled planetary-asteroid missions

Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (cancelled)
JIMO (cancelled)
CRAF (cancelled)
Pluto Kuiper Express (cancelled; New Horizons is replacement)

Discovery Channel program

In 2008, Discovery Channel aired a six-part documentary on the NASA missions, entitled "When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions." Narrated by award-winning actor Gary Sinise, the mini-series uses never before seen footage exclusively from NASA's film vault.