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13 in 1982 the longest ever soviet planetary surface mission venus and mars are the two planets outside of earth on which humans have conducted surface missions with uncrewed robotic spacecraft first space station edit salyut 1 was the first space station of any kind launched into low earth orbit by the soviet union on 19 april 1971 the international space station iss is currently the largest and oldest of the 2 current fully functional space stations inhabited continuously since the year 2000 the other tiangong space station built by china is now fully crewed and operational first interstellar space flight edit voyager 1 became the first human made object to leave the solar system into interstellar space on 25 august 2012 the probe passed the heliopause at 121 au to enter interstellar space 28 farthest from earth edit in 1970 apollo 13 flight passed the far side of the moon at an altitude of 254 kilometers 158 miles 137 nautical miles above the lunar surface and 400 171 km 248 655 mi from earth marking the record for the farthest humans had ever traveled from earth until the artemis ii lunar flyby in april 2026 which was 406 773 km 252 757 mi from earth at its furthest point as of 9 february 2025 update voyager 1 was at a distance of 166 4 au 24 89 billion km 15 47 billion mi from earth 29 it is the most distant human made object from earth 30 targets of exploration edit starting in the mid 20th century probes and then human missions were sent into earth orbit and then on to the moon also probes were sent throughout the known solar system and into solar orbit uncrewed spacecraft have been sent into orbit around saturn jupiter mars venus and mercury by the 21st century and the most distance active spacecraft voyager 1 and 2 traveled beyond 100 times the earth sun distance the instruments were enough though that it is thought they have left the sun s heliosphere a sort of bubble of particles made in the galaxy by the sun s solar wind the sun edit the sun is a major focus of space exploration being above the atmosphere in particular and earth s magnetic field gives access to the solar wind and infrared and ultraviolet radiations that cannot reach earth s surface the sun generates most space weather which can affect power generation and transmission systems on earth and interfere with and even damage satellites and space probes numerous spacecraft dedicated to observing the sun beginning with the apollo telescope mount have been launched and still others have had solar observation as a secondary objective parker solar probe launched in 2018 will approach the sun to within 1 9th the orbit of mercury mercury edit main article exploration of mercury a messenger image from 18 000 km showing a region about 500 km across 2008 mercury remains the least explored of the terrestrial planets as of may 2013 the mariner 10 and messenger missions have been the only missions that have made close observations of mercury messenger entered orbit around mercury in march 2011 to further investigate the observations made by mariner 10 in 1975 munsell 2006b a third mission to mercury scheduled to arrive in 2025 bepicolombo is to include two probes bepicolombo is a joint mission between japan and the european space agency messenger and bepicolombo are intended to gather complementary data to help scientists understand many of the mysteries discovered by mariner 10 s flybys flights to other planets within the solar system are accomplished at a cost in energy which is described by the net change in velocity of the spacecraft or delta v due to the relatively high delta v to reach mercury and its proximity to the sun it is difficult to explore and orbits around it are rather unstable venus edit main article observations and explorations of venus venus was the first target of interplanetary flyby and lander missions and despite one of the most hostile surface environments in the solar system has had more landers sent to it nearly all from the soviet union than any other planet in the solar system the first flyby was the 1961 venera 1 though the 1962 mariner 2 was the first flyby to successfully return data mariner 2 has been followed by several other flybys by multiple space agencies often as part of missions using a venus flyby to provide a gravitational assist en route to other celestial bodies in 1967 venera 4 became the first probe to enter and directly examine the atmosphere of venus in 1970 venera 7 became the first successful lander to reach the surface of venus and by 1985 it had been followed by eight additional successful soviet venus landers which provided images and other direct surface data starting in 1975 with the soviet orbiter venera 9 some ten successful orbiter missions have been sent to venus including later missions which were able to map the surface of venus using radar to pierce the obscuring atmosphere earth edit main article earth observation satellite first television image of earth from space taken by tiros 1 1960 space exploration has been used as a tool to understand earth as a celestial object orbital missions can provide data for earth that can be difficult or impossible to obtain from a purely ground based point of reference for example the existence of the van allen radiation belts was unknown until their discovery by the united states first artificial satellite explorer 1 these belts contain radiation trapped by earth s magnetic fields which currently renders construction of habitable space stations above 1000 km impractical following this early unexpected discovery a large number of earth observation satellites have been deployed specifically to explore earth from a space based perspective these satellites have significantly contributed to the understanding of a variety of earth based phenomena for instance the hole in the ozone layer was found by an artificial satellite that was exploring earth s atmosphere and satellites have allowed for the discovery of archeological sites or geological formations that were difficult or impossible to otherwise identify moon edit main article exploration of the moon apollo 16 lem orion the lunar roving vehicle and astronaut john young 1972 the moon was the first celestial body to be the object of space exploration it holds the distinctions of being the first remote celestial object to be flown by orbited and landed upon by spacecraft and the only remote celestial object ever to be visited by humans in 1959 the soviets obtained the first images of the far side of the moon never previously visible to humans the u s exploration of the moon began with the ranger 4 impactor in 1962 starting in 1966 the soviets successfully deployed a number of landers to the moon which were able to obtain data directly from the moon s surface just four months later surveyor 1 marked the debut of a successful series of u s landers the soviet uncrewed missions culminated in the lunokhod program in the early 1970s which included the first uncrewed rovers and also successfully brought lunar soil samples to earth for study this marked the first and to date the only automated return of extraterrestrial soil samples to earth uncrewed exploration of the moon continues with various nations periodically deploying lunar orbiters china s chang e 4 in 2019 and chang e 6 in 2024 achieved the world s first landing and sample return on the far side of the moon india s chandrayaan 3 in 2023 achieved the world s first landing on the lunar south pole region crewed exploration of the moon began in 1968 with the apollo 8 mission that successfully orbited the moon the first time any extraterrestrial object was orbited by humans in 1969 the apollo 11 mission marked the first time humans set foot upon another world crewed exploration of the moon did not continue for long the apollo 17 mission in 1972 marked the sixth landing and the most recent human visit artemis ii completed a crewed flyby of the moon in 2026 and artemis iv planned for 2028 will be the first lunar landing since apollo 17 robotic missions are still pursued vigorously mars edit main article exploration of mars surface of mars by the spirit rover 2004 the exploration of mars has been an important part of the space exploration programs of the soviet union later russia the united states europe japan and india dozens of robotic spacecraft including orbiters landers and rovers have been launched toward mars since the 1960s these missions were aimed at gathering data about current conditions and answering questions about the history of mars the questions raised by the scientific community are expected to not only give a better appreciation of the red planet but also yield further insight into the past and possible future of earth the exploration of mars has come at a considerable financial cost with roughly two thirds of all spacecraft destined for mars failing before completing their missions with some failing before they even began such a high failure rate can be attributed to the complexity and large number of variables involved in an interplanetary journey and has led researchers to jokingly speak of the great galactic ghoul 31 which subsists on a diet of mars probes this phenomenon is also informally known as the mars curse 32 in contrast to overall high failure rates in the exploration of mars india has become the first country to achieve success of its maiden attempt india s mars orbiter mission mom 33 34 35 is one of the least expensive interplanetary missions ever undertaken with an approximate total cost of 450 crore us 73 million 36 37 the first mission to mars by any arab country has been taken up by the united arab emirates called the emirates mars mission it was launched on 19 july 2020 and went into orbit around mars on 9 february 2021 the uncrewed exploratory probe was named hope probe and was sent to mars to study its atmosphere in detail 38 phobos edit main article exploration of phobos the russian space mission fobos grunt which launched on 9 november 2011 experienced a failure leaving it stranded in low earth orbit 39 it was to begin exploration of the phobos and martian circumterrestrial orbit and study whether the moons of mars or at least phobos could be a trans shipment point for spaceships traveling to mars 40 asteroids edit main article exploration of the asteroids asteroid 4 vesta imaged by the dawn spacecraft 2011 until the advent of space travel objects in the asteroid belt were merely pinpricks of light in even the largest telescopes their shapes and terrain remaining a mystery several asteroids have now been visited by probes the first of which was galileo which flew past two 951 gaspra in 1991 followed by 243 ida in 1993 both of these lay near enough to galileo s planned trajectory to jupiter that they could be visited at acceptable cost the first landing on an asteroid was performed by the near shoemaker probe in 2000 following an orbital survey of the object 433 eros the dwarf planet ceres and the asteroid 4 vesta two of the three largest asteroids were visited by nasa s dawn spacecraft launched in 2007 hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the japan aerospace exploration agency to return a sample of material from the small near earth asteroid 25143 itokawa to earth for further analysis hayabusa was launched on 9 may 2003 and rendezvoused with itokawa in mid september 2005 after arriving at itokawa hayabusa studied the asteroid s shape spin topography color composition density and history in november 2005 it landed on the asteroid twice to collect samples the spacecraft returned to earth on 13 june 2010 jupiter edit main article exploration of jupiter tupan patera on jupiter s moon io the exploration of jupiter has consisted solely of a number of automated nasa spacecraft visiting the planet since 1973 a large majority of the missions have been flybys in which detailed observations are taken without the probe landing or entering orbit such as in pioneer and voyager programs the galileo and juno spacecraft are the only spacecraft to have entered the planet s orbit as jupiter is believed to have only a relatively small rocky core and no real solid surface a landing mission is precluded reaching jupiter from earth requires a delta v of 9 2 km s 41 which is comparable to the 9 7 km s delta v needed to reach low earth orbit 42 fortunately gravity assists through planetary flybys can be used to reduce the energy required at launch to reach jupiter albeit at the cost of a significantly longer flight duration 41 jupiter has 95 known moons many of which have relatively little known information about them saturn edit main article exploration of saturn saturn has been explored only through uncrewed spacecraft launched by nasa including one mission cassini huygens planned and executed in cooperation with other space agencies these missions consist of flybys in 1979 by pioneer 11 in 1980 by voyager 1 in 1982 by voyager 2 and an orbital mission by the cassini spacecraft which lasted from 2004 until 2017 saturn has at least 62 known moons although the exact number is debatable since saturn s rings are made up of vast numbers of independently orbiting objects of varying sizes the largest of the moons is titan which holds the distinction of being the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere denser and thicker than that of earth titan holds the distinction of being the only object in the outer solar system that has been explored with a lander the huygens probe deployed by the cassini spacecraft uranus edit main article exploration of uranus the exploration of uranus has been entirely through the voyager 2 spacecraft however there are plans for the chinese tianwen 4 mission to visit it or callisto 43 given its axial tilt of 97 77 with its polar regions exposed to sunlight or darkness for long periods scientists were not sure what to expect at uranus the closest approach to uranus occurred on 24 january 1986 voyager 2 studied the planet s unique atmosphere and magnetosphere voyager 2 also examined its ring system and the moons of uranus including all five of the previously known moons while discovering an additional ten previously unknown moons images of uranus proved to have a uniform appearance with no evidence of the dramatic storms or atmospheric banding evident on jupiter and saturn great effort was required to even identify a few clouds in the images of the planet the magnetosphere of uranus however proved to be unique being profoundly affected by the planet s unusual axial tilt in contrast to the bland appearance of uranus itself striking images were obtained of the moons of uranus including evidence that miranda had been unusually geologically active neptune edit main article exploration of neptune the exploration of neptune began with the 25 august 1989 voyager 2 flyby the sole visit to the system the possibility of a neptune orbiter has been discussed but no other missions have been given serious thought although th...
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