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Flyby; discovered Dactyl; first asteroid with a moon visited by a spacecraft, largest asteroid visited by spacecraft at the time. 253 Mathilde: 66 × 48 × 46 (58 km) 1885 NEAR Shoemaker: 1997 1,212: 49.5 Flyby; largest asteroid visited by a spacecraft at the time. 433 Eros: 34 × 11 × 11 (17 km) 1898 NEAR Shoemaker: 1998–2001 landed: landed
Entered orbit around 67P at 09:06 UTC on 6 August 2014. On 30 September 2016 mission ended in an attempt to slow land on the comet's surface near a 130 m (425 ft) wide pit called Deir el-Medina. Ariane 5G+ Philae: 2 March 2004: ESA / DLR Germany: 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko: Lander Successful: Carried by Rosetta.
COmet Rendezvous, Sample Acquisition, Investigation, and Return (CORSAIR) is a concept mission to return comet nucleus samples to Earth for detailed analysis.The mission concept was submitted in May 2017 by a team from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in response to the New Frontiers program call for mission 4, but did not pass the initial down selection.
Lunar orbiter, a secondary payload on the IM-2 mission [8] EscaPADE: Spring 2025 Two Mars orbiters [9] Tianwen-2: May 2025 Asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa sample return, comet 311P/PanSTARRS orbiter [10] Artemis II: April 2026 4-person lunar flyby [11] [12] Martian Moons eXploration: 2026 Martian moon sample return mission [13] Chang'e 7: 2026
One further focus of such investigation—besides the basic composition and geologic history of the various Solar System bodies—is the presence of the building blocks of life on comets, asteroids, Mars or the moons of the gas giants. Several sample-return missions to asteroids and comets are currently in the works.
Galileo 's prime mission was a two-year study of the Jovian system, but on March 26, 1993, while it was en route, astronomers Carolyn S. Shoemaker, Eugene M. Shoemaker and David H. Levy discovered fragments of a comet orbiting Jupiter, the remains of a comet that had passed within Jupiter's Roche limit and had been torn apart by tidal forces.
The Rosetta mission to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in 2014, indicates that Jupiter family comets cannot be the main source of Earth's water as previously thought. [1] Castalia would rendezvous and orbit comet 7968 Elst–Pizarro and measure isotope ratios, plasma and dust properties, while also mapping its interior structure with a radar.
Lunar Prospector was the third mission selected by NASA for full development and construction as part of the Discovery Program. [2] At a cost of $62.8 million, the 19-month mission was designed for a low polar orbit investigation of the Moon, including mapping of surface composition including lunar hydrogen deposits, measurements of magnetic and gravity fields, and study of lunar outgassing ...