Unmanned Exploration
| United States | Soviet Union | |
| 1957 | Sputnik-1 First artificial satellite |
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| 1958 | Explorer III Discovered Earth's radiation belt. |
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| 1959 | Luna 1 USSR Lunar Flyby |
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| 1959 | Luna 2 USSR Lunar Hard Lander first spacecraft to impact the surface of the moon. |
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| 1960 | Pioneer 5 USA Solar Monitor |
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| 1961 | Venera 1 - USSR Venus | |
| 1962/3 | Mariner 2 USA Venus Flyby Scanned its surface with infrared and microwave radiometers |
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| 1965 | Mariner 4 USA Mars Flyby It returned 22 close-up photos showing a cratered surface. |
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| 1965 | Zond 3 USSR Lunar Flyby Returned pictures of the lunar far side. |
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| 1966 | Luna 9 USSR Lunar Soft Lander Landed on the lunar surface and returned the first photographs from the surface. |
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| 1966 | Surveyor 1 USA Lunar Soft Lander First American soft landing |
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| 1967 | Venera 4 USSR Venus Atmospheric Probe |
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| 1970 | Venera 7 USSR Venus Lander First successful landing of a spacecraft on another planet. It used an external cooling device which allowed it to send back 23 minutes of data. |
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| 1970 | Luna 17 USSR Lander and Rover Made lunar landing with an automated Lunokhod 1 rover. |
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| 1973 | Pioneer 10 USA Jupiter Flyby Passed 132,250 kilometers from Jupiter's cloud tops. It returned over 500 images of Jupiter and its moons. Also collected data on Jupiter's magnetic field, trapped charged particles, and solar wind interactions. |
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| 1974/95 | Pioneer 11 USA Jupiter/Saturn Flyby Pioneer 11 flew by Jupiter on December 1, 1974. It took pictures and measured Jupiter's intense charged-particle and magnet field environment. On September 1, 1979, Pioneer 11 flew past the outer edge of Saturn's A ring at a range of 3,500 kilometers. It has now left the solar system. |
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| 1975 | Helios 1 USA & West Germany Solar Probe Solar probe is in a solar orbit |
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| 1975/80 | Viking 1 & 2 USA Mars Orbiters/Landers Both landers had experiments to search for Martian micro-organism. The results of these experiments are still being debated. The landers provided detailed color panoramic views of the Martian terrain. They also monitored the Martian weather. |
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| 1977/89 | Voyager 2 USA Jupiter/Saturn/Uranus/Neptune Flyby Flew by Jupiter on July 9, 1979, Saturn on August 26, 1981, Uranus on January 24, 1986, and Neptune on August 24, 1989. |
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| 1985 | Sakigake Japan Comet Flyby Comet Halley flyby took place on March 1, 1986. |
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| 1985/90 | Giotto Europe Comet Flyby Comet Halley flyby took place on March 13, 1986. Giotto was then put into hibernation, and to be re-awoken in 1990. Using a close Earth flyby, its trajectory was changed to allow a close encounter with the Comet Grigg-Skjellerup on July 10th, 1992. |
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| 1985/91 | Suisei Japan Comet Flyby Comet Halley flyby took place on March 8, 1986. |
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| 1990 | Hubble Space Telescope USA & Europe Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope has returned high-resolution images of Mars and the other outer planets of the Solar System. |
