(missions by order of mission's end; recentest ends first. all data as of last publication on this site)
- Mission's End: June 2013
- Launched on: April, 28th, 2003
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Mission, Features: GALEX was a space telescope working in the ultraviolet, studying the evolution of galaxies. GALEX data was to be accessible, as a large archive, to the astronomical community and to the general public
- Results, Remarks: as the spacecraft had been placed in standby mode in February of 2012, NASA as of May 2012 lended the Galaxy Evolution
Explorer (GALEX) to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where the spacecraft will continue its exploration of the cosmos so the
university soon can resume spacecraft operations and data management for the
mission using private funds, a première for the space agency
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Mission's End: March 24th, 2011
- Launched on: early 1999
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Mission, Features: Stardust was a mission sent to comet Wild 2 to collect cometary dust there and interstellar dust along its way. The comet was reached as forecasted on January, 2nd 2004, as the craft, after a journey back Earth released a sample capsule, which parachuted on January, 15th 2006 over Utah, putting an end to the mission. The samples will provide scientists with clues about the origins of the solar system. more on a dedicated page on this site. Stardust had passed near asteroid Annefrank on November, 2nd, 2002. The mission officially had ended in January 2006 as NASA, since the summer 2007, extended the craft mission under the name Stardust-NExT, to a second flyby of comet Tempel 1, by Feb. 14, 2011, while the will be returning from a close approach to the Sun and as the comet had been the object of the Deep Impact mission, with a load impacting at the surface. The flyby will occur by about 125 miles from the surface with 72 images expected to be taken. After that, the craft should keep imaging until no longer of value and eventually be plugged off by March or April 2011. check a dedicated page about the Stardust-NExT flyby
- Results, Remarks: the Stardust mission officially was decommissioned by March 24th, 2011 when a 'burn to depletion maneuver' was performed and last data transmitted. The burn will serve flight engineers to improve their spacecraft fuel consumption models as no reliable fuel gauge exist until now for the weightless environment of space flight. The Stardust mission successfully had completed its missions both original or extended
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Mission's End: September 8th, 2010
- Launched on: June 2001
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Mission, Features: a mission at the Lagrangian point L2 to study with accuracy the cosmic microwave background radiation
- Results, Remarks: the WMAP allowed for a better accuracy about the cosmic microwave background radiation, that light issued from the early Universe 400,000 years after the Big Bang had occurred and the tiny, 1-for-100,000 variations in temperature of which allow to the size, material, age and geometry of the Universe. The probe thus increased data which had been collected by the COBE mission in the 1990s. By mission's end WMAP fired its engines to relocate on a innocuate solar orbit
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Mission's End: June 2010
- Launched on: April 1st, 1998
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Mission, Features: a Small Explorer class spacecraft, TRACE was a mission to study the Sun's corona, that outer part of the Sun's 'atmosphere'
- Results, Remarks: TRACE allowed to study a entire cycle of solar activity and imaging dynamic coronal phenomena and, with a resolution five times the one of the EUITI instrument aboard the SOHO mission, it provided many details of the fine structure of the corona. During its 12 year mission, TRACE produced millions of images. TRACE had been developed by Lockheed-Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, Calif.
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Mission's End: June 14th, 2010
- Launched on: May, 9th, 2003, from the Kagoshima Space Center, Uchinoura, Japan
- Agency, Country: NASDA, ISAS (Japan)
- Mission, Features: the mission's goal was to reach asteroid 1998SF36 (1650 ft wide, also named 25143 Itokawa, for the father of Japanese rocketry) which is located in the asteroid belt (between Mars and Jupiter). After having set into orbit around the asteroid, the craft was toland at the surface, fire a small bullett, eject fragments. The craft was then to takeoff back and head Earth with a parachuting of a capsule over Woomera, Australia
- Results, Remarks: Hayabusa sucessfully rendezvoused with asteroid
Itokawa in September 2005 making close science observations during the next two-and-a-half months as on Nov. 25 of that year, the craft briefly
touched down on the surface of Itokawa being the 2nd spacecraft in space history to descend to the surface of a asteroid (the first was NASA's Near Earth Asteroid
Rendezvous-Shoemaker spacecraft landing on asteroid Eros on Feb. 12, 2001). Hayabusa departed Itokawa in January 2007 as it eventually landed safely in Australia. After retrieval, the spacecraft samples were JAXA's sample curatorial facility in Sagamihara, Japan. The designed bullet-shooting into the surface didn't work properly and instead of crushing and propelling material through a long tube into a samle container the sole impact of the tube landing forced some into the container however. The craft also developed a fuel leak and lost contact with Earth for seven weeks. Varied problems forced Japan to add three years to the mission. 877,490 names amongst the public were collected and dropped on the asteroid surface under the form of a grapefruit-sized marker. Muses-C performed an Earth swingby on May, 19th 2004 to gain a velocity boost towards the asteroid belt
- check more with the site of Japanese space agency, JAXA
- Mission's End: May 2010
- Launched on: August 4th, 2007 at 5:26 a.m. EDT, aboard a Delta II from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS)
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Mission, Features: Phoenix was a Martian lander landing onto the icy far-northern Martian plains. The lander used a long, sample-picking arm to examine the site for potential habitats for water ice and to look for possible indicators of life, past or present
- Results, Remarks: the Phoenix mission was part of NASA's Mars Scout Program. Such missions are innovative and relatively low-cost complements to the core missions of NASA's Mars exploration program. Phoenix was taking back instruments built or designed for the mothballed (in 2000) 2001 Mars Surveyor lander or the unsuccessfull Mars Polar Lander of 1999. Phoenix was managed by the JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. The mission was a partnership including the University of Arizona, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, and the Canadian Space Agency. As the mission had landed successfully on Sunday, May 25th, 2008, NASA extended it down to the end of 2008 (see our special page about the landing coverage). Few after its landing, the mission fulfilled its target which was to get the evidence that ice was to be found few under the Martian surface, with some more characteristics of interest as far as the possibility of life at Mars is concerned. Due to deteriorations caused by the Martian conditions however, the mission ceased to function by the beginning of November 2008, just two months beyond its three-month mission. By 2010, NASA's Mars Odyssey conducted several campaigns to check on whether the Phoenix Mars Lander unprobably has revived itself
after the northern Martian winter, which proved unsuccessful. NASA thus officially terminated the mission by May 2010. Phoenix was not designed to withstand the extremely low temperatures and the ice
load of the Martian arctic winter. Among other, it was
anticipated that the weight of a carbon-dioxide ice buildup could bend or break
the lander's solar panels. Hundreds of pounds of ice probably
coated the lander in mid-winter. Phoenix mission to Mars carried digital recordings of literature and art
about the Red Planet
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Mission's End: June, 29th, 2009
- Launched on: October 6th, 1990
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA) / ESA (Europe)
- Mission, Features: Ulysses was about the solar wind, and the Sun magnetic field. It extended mission will allow it to study a solar cycle's minimum a second time (in 2006). This time solar magnetic field will have flipped (since 2001)
- Results, Remarks: Ulysses passed through Hyakutake comet's tail. Ulysses orbit was highly inclined to the ecliptic (allowing it to see Sun's poles) and highly eccentric, bringing spacecraft up to Jupiter's orbit. The mission, which was scheduled for a 5-year duration, was extended thrice. The team, at a moment, had worried about Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) as a long time power generated was fading, threatening hydrazine lines and being just enough for science instruments
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Mission's End: second semester of 2006
- Launched on: November 7th, 1996
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Mission, Features: mapping Mars. The MGS began its work in March 1999 after having gradually adjusted the shape of its orbit.
MGS mission have been extended and it has been the longest working orbiter ever at Mars. Its last mission extension comprises weather monitoring, possible landing sites for the next missions, spotting key sedimentary-rock outcrops, and monitoring changes due to wind and ice
- Results, Remarks: Mars Global Surveyor has mapped 4.5 percent of Mars' surface until now. Due to a series of events, the craft unluckily misoriented its batteries so they got exposed to direct sunlight, leading to their complete exhaustion. The loss of the craft led to a review of the procedures for the other craft of the NASA. The Mars Global Surveyor was, in the latest state of the mission's extensions, meant to work until Sep. 2008
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool. more images at the MSSS site
- Mission's End: September 2006
- Launched on: overnight September, 27th-28th 2003 (Kourou, French Guiana)
- Agency, Country: ESA (Europe)
- Mission, Features: main mission of SMART-1 was to test, from an European point of view, the concept of an ion engine (instead of being chemically propulsed, the craft converts solar energy into power, which electrically charge atoms, which are expelled at high speed and propulse the probe). On the other hand, SMART-1 was a lunar orbiter mission including pictures (mapping in infrared with an unprecedented resolution) and chemical composition mapping
- Results, Remarks: the craft spiral-orbited away from Earth until being catched by Moon's gravity. Mission orbit was polar elliptical ranging between 300 km and 10,000 km above Moon's surface. It was the first European lunar orbiter mission, as the craft eventually was intentionally crashed unto the lunar surface. SMART-1, meanwhile, had observed the intentional crash of the Japanese Kaguya Moon mission, in June 2009, observing the plume and the impact crater of it. As the crash occurred about the limb of our moon, amateur astronomers, with a telescope, could, when well located on the Earth, observe the impact too under a form of a brief flash of light or a plume of debris rising from the Moon's limb. SMART-1 self crasHed by September 3, 2006
- to the official site at ESA
- Mission's end: June 30th, 2006
- Launched on: March 22nd, 2006
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Mission, Features: ST5 was part of a series of missions which are deviced to test next-generation techniques. ST5, specifically, was to test launchers, launch, and next generation constellations of micro-satellite
- Results, Remarks: after completing its mission, the micro-sats will be used to further support science and educational endeavors
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Mission's end: September 2005
- Launched on: April 19th, 2004, Vandenberg Air Force Base
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Mission, Features: mission had to test Eintein's theory about the distortion of space and time by massive objects, measuring how Earth warps space and time and how Earth's rotation drags space-time around it
- Results, Remarks: scientists have now to analyse data collected by the mission. A study ahead of Gravity Probe B by an international team of NASA and university researchers recently found (October 25th 2004) that one of mission's objective -Earth dragging space-time around it- was verified with an accuracy of 10 percent. If the value "gamma", the curvature of three-dimensional space, is found by Gravity Probe B less than "1", this will support the idea that a force field, a "scalar field" is existing, that is a field akin to gravity but much weaker, bringing the first experimental support ever for the so-called "string theories". On the other hand, "gamma" is not expected to be found greater than 1. A gamma value of 1 would be another hint to that Einstein was right and that the discrepancies between its Theory of Relativity and quantum physics is a matter of fact only. The value of "gamma" is expected to be measured with a precision as good as 0.01 per cent of its true value, and maybe as good as 0.001!
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Mission's end: September 8th, 2004
- Launched on: April 8th, 2001, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Mission, Features: Genesis had to collect solar wind material for a comprehensive understanding of how Solar system early history unfolded. The solar wind particles are sampling what the conditions were in the earliest solar system, 4.5 billion years ago
- Results, Remarks: after having begun in December 2001, the material collection stopped in April 2004 as the samples were stowed in a sample return capsule (SRC). The SRC was to be jettisoned from Genesis and to enter into the Earth's atmosphere, for a parachuting unto the U.S. Air Force Utah Testing and Training Range. The parachuting partly failed however as the capsule's rogue chute did not open leading to a hard landing. The team eventually recovered most of the samples which, time elapsing, are proving mostly safe and are progressively shipped to the laboratories for which they were collected. The original amount of material collected was expected to provide enough data to last well into the 21st century and eliminate the need for future solar wind experiments. The Mishap Investigation Board (MIB) which had been appointed likely identified a cause of the parachute system failure. It might that the two gravity-switches devices installed inside the heat shield would have been improperly installed on a circuit board. Such avionics units are used to sense decceleration as the capsule enters Earth's atmosphere. The SRC was to be jettisoned from Genesis several hours before entering Earth's atmosphere, on September, 8th, 9:55 a.m. Mountain time. A drogue chute was to deploy at 108,000 ft 2 mn 7 s after the entry as 6 mn later the main parafoil parachute was to open at 20,000 ft, eventually slowing the SRC down to 10 mph. Two chase helicopters fitted with a 18 ½ ft hook had to grab the payload midair and to lower it down to ground
- to the official site
Website Manager: G. Guichard, site 'Amateur Astronomy,' http://stars5.6te.net. Page Editor: G. Guichard. last edited: 3/25/2011. contact us at geguicha@outlook.com
GALEX (Galaxy Evolution Explorer)