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Sputnik
Who: Russia
Where: Orbit Earth
WhyImportant: This satellite was the first in space and caused the begging of the space race. -
Able 6
Who: NASA
Where: Orbit between Earth and Venus
WhyImportant: The spacecraft proved to be a successful test of technologies that would carry later missions,also confirmed the existence of the interplanetary magnetic field. -
Christmas at the Moon!
Who: Apollo 8
Where: To the Moon
Why Important: It showed pictures of the moon to everyone on television. -
Apollo 11
Who: NASA (Apollo 11)
Where: Moon
Why Important: 6 apollos made it to the moon and safly back to earth. -
Viking
Who: NASA
Where: Mars
Why Important:There were 2 Vikings both made to orbit and land on mars. Viking 1 was the first successful mission to land on Mars -
Voyager 1 and 2
Who; Interstellar Vopyager
Where: Neptune
Why Important:Voyager 2 is the only human-made object to have flown by Neptune. In the closest approach of its entire tour, the spacecraft passed less than 5,000 km above the planet's cloud tops. It discovered five moons, four rings, and a "Great Dark Spot" that vanished by the time the Hubble Space Telescope imaged Neptune five years later. -
Magellan
Who: NASA
Where: Orbit Venus
Why Important: Magella made the first global map of the surface of Venus as well as global maps of the planet's gravity field. The mission produced surprising findings about Venus, including a relatively young planetary surface possibly formed by lava flows from planet-wide volcanic eruptions. -
Ulysses
Who: NASA and ESA (European Space Agency)
Where: Orbit the Sun in a unique polar orbit
Why Important: Ulysses was the first mission to survey the space environment above and below the poles of our Sun. The spacecraft used an unprecedented gravity assist maneuver at Jupiter to hurl itself out of the plane of the ecliptic and into its solar polar orbit. -
Clementine Project
Who: NASA and the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization
Where: Orbit of Earth
Why Important: The clementine project was used to test sensors and spacecraft componets under extend exposer to space enviornment. -
ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer)
Who: NASA
Where: Orbit Earth
Why Important: provide space weather reports and warnings of geomagnetic storms that can disrupt communications on Earth and harm astronauts in space. -
100th Flyby with a Look Back
Who: Cassini
Where: Titan (Moon of Saturn)
Why Important: Thisi satellite gets information on this moon and Saturn, this moon is very much like Earth just in a deep freeze. -
Chang'e 2
Who: China
Where: Orbit of the moon but had enough gas to send it from the moon to an orbit around Lagrangian point L2 about 1.5 million km away from Earth.
Why Important:The Chang'e 2 orbiter was China's second lunar mission. Its principal objectives are to return high resolution images of the lunar surface to aid in selection of a future landing site for another mission. -
Landsat 8
Who: NASA
Where: Orbit Space
Why Important: It sends us visual picyures of our planet. -
MOM
Who: NASA
Where: Orbit Mars
Why Important:Was country's first mission to the Red Planet. The mission aims to test key technologies for interplanetary exploration and to use its five science instruments to study the Martian surface and atmosphere from orbit. -
TiME (Titan Misson Explorer)
Who: NASA
Where:will be on a large methane-ethane sea on Saturn's moon Titan.
Why Important; This is one of three science investigations from which NASA will pick one potential 2016 mission.
