🛰️ Missions

Hubble Space Telescope Thirty-six years above the weather, and still working. James Webb Space Telescope A golden mirror that sees the first galaxies in infrared. Chandra X-ray Observatory The telescope that shows what is hot and violent. Spitzer Space Telescope Sixteen years of infrared, through dust that hides everything else. Kepler Stared at one patch of sky and found thousands of planets. TESS Kepler’s successor, watching the whole sky for planets. GALEX Ten years of the ultraviolet sky. Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Sweeps the whole sky for gamma rays, every three hours. COBE Photographed the afterglow of the Big Bang, and won a Nobel Prize. Planck Took the sharpest picture of the oldest light there is. Gaia Mapped nearly two billion stars, then switched itself off. Voyager 1 The furthest human object, still calling home after 49 years. Voyager 2 The only spacecraft that has ever visited Uranus and Neptune. Galileo Fourteen years at Jupiter, and a probe dropped into its clouds. Cassini–Huygens Thirteen years around Saturn, and a landing on Titan. New Horizons Nine years to Pluto, for one day of pictures. Juno Diving between Jupiter’s radiation belts to see inside it. Apollo 8 The first people to leave Earth behind and go somewhere else. Apollo 11 Two people walked on another world, and came back. Apollo 17 The last time anyone stood on the Moon. Chandrayaan-1 India’s first mission to the Moon, and it found water. Chandrayaan-3 The first landing near the Moon’s south pole. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Has been mapping the Moon, metre by metre, since 2009. Artemis I An empty crew ship, sent round the Moon to prove it works. Sojourner The first wheels on another planet, the size of a microwave. Spirit Sent for ninety days, worked for six years. Opportunity Drove a marathon on Mars, on a ninety-day warranty. Curiosity A nuclear-powered laboratory the size of a car. Perseverance Collecting Mars, a tube at a time, for someone to fetch. Parker Solar Probe The spacecraft that flew into the Sun’s atmosphere.