The ambition of the North American space agency knows no limits.
We love to show you what happens in the space field and that is why we wanted to make a collection of NASA missions, in the form of a list, in order to understand the enormous dimension of the most important space agency in the world. We have previously told you what are the NASA plans to put humans on Mars o what is the ISS and the countries that comprise it. Now it is the turn of the main missions of the North American space agency.
Learn regarding the main missions of NASA: past, present and future of humanity
Next, since we want this Article be one quick reference referencemore than an entire encyclopedia regarding NASA missions, we show you the major space programs of his story. We have divided them into manned missions, unmanned lunar missions, missions to other planets and, finally, missions to other celestial bodies.
manned missions
| Mission | dates | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Programa Mercury | 1958-1963 | America’s first manned space program, which came following the Soviet Union put Sputnik 1 into orbit. |
| The Gemini program | 1961-1965 | Predecessor of the Apollo Program and vital to gain experience before taking the first man to the Moon. |
| Program Apolo | 1960-1968 | One of the most important missions in the history of NASA, which got the human being to step on the Moon. |
| Skylab | 1964-1974 | It was NASA’s first space station, occupied from May 1973 to February 1974. |
| Apollo–Soyuz | 1971-1975 | It was the first manned space mission, which also served to iron out differences between the United States and the Soviet Union. |
| space shuttle program | 1972-2011 | It was the fourth space travel program with crew members to transport merchandise between Earth and our orbit. |
| Programa Shuttle–Mir | 1993-1998 | It represents the collaboration between Russia and the United States and consisted of the visit of the space shuttles to the Mir space station, the trip of Russian cosmonauts in the shuttle and American astronauts in the Soyuz spacecraft. |
| International Space Station | 1993-Present | It is a multinational collaborative project between the five participating space agencies: NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA and CSA/ASC. |
| Commercial Crew Program | 2011-Present | The program transports crews to and from the ISS aboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule and SpaceX’s Dragon 2. |
| Programa Artemis | 2017-Present | During different stages, it is intended to follow the return of man to the Moon, in this case of a woman and a black person. |
unmanned lunar missions
| Mission | dates | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Program Pioneer | 1958-1978 | These United States unmanned space missions were designed for the exploration of other planets in our Solar System. | ranger program | 1959-1965 | Its main objective was to photograph the Moon to obtain information regarding the characteristics of its surface, with a view to the development of the Surveyor and Apollo programs. |
| Lunar Orbiter Program | 1966-1967 | The program had five missions, and in 1971 the cartographers David Bowker and Kenrick Hughes were able to produce a photographic atlas of the Moon. |
| Clementine Mission | 1994 | Called the ‘Deep Space Experimental Science Program’, this mission successfully completed the mission of remapping the Moon. |
| Surveyor Program | 1966-1968 | The main objective of this mission was to provide automatic lunar probes with photographic, chemical analysis and soil excavation capabilities. |
| Lunar Precursor Robotic Program | 2009-Present | This NASA mission uses robotic spacecraft to prepare for future manned missions to the Moon. |
Missions to other planets
| Mission | dates | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Programa Mariner | 1962-1973 | NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed and built 10 spacecraft, called Mariner, whose mission would be to explore the planets of Venus, Mars, and Mercury. |
| Programa Mars Exploration Rover | 2003-2018 | This NASA mission used two rovers on the surface of Mars, Spirit and Opportunity, which explored the planet. |
| Programa Mars Pathfinder | 1996-1997 | This mission aimed to study Mars from the surface and was comprised of the Carl Sagan Memorial Station lander and the Sojourner rover. |
| Program Mars Polar Lander | 1999-2000 | This was an American space probe, carrying three descent modules. |
| Programa Mars Science Laboratory | 2011-Present | This mission is the one that put the Curiosity rover on Mars. |
| March 2020 Program | 2020-Present | This mission is the one that has brought the Ingenuity explorer helicopter and the Perseverance rover to the red planet. |
| Programa Viking | 1975-1983 | It consisted of two unmanned missions to the planet Mars, known as Viking I and Viking II, with the main objective of carrying out the first biological study of the planet. |
| Travel Program | 1977-Present | This mission sent two US space probes to the outer planets. Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977, passing by Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980. Voyager 2 was launched on August 20, 1977, passing by Uranus and Neptune and already being outside the heliosphere. |
Missions to celestial objects
| Mission | dates | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Programa Discovery | 1996-2011 | We are facing a set of missions dedicated to exploring the Solar System. |
| Programa New Frontiers | 2006-Present | There are several space exploration missions that are being carried out by NASA and that seek to investigate various planets of the Solar System. |
| The DART program | 2021-2022 | One of the most recent missions has consisted of directing a ship once morest an asteroid to find out the type of effect that the impact had on its trajectory. |
