Astronomy:List of extraterrestrial orbiters
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This list of extraterrestrial orbiters is a listing of spacecraft that achieved an extraterrestrial orbit.
Legend
| Color legend for orbital status | |
|---|---|
| Departed | |
| Unclear | |
| Inactive | |
| Operational | |
Sun
First artificial object on heliocentric orbit was Luna 1 (1959).
Mercury
| Mission | Country/agency | Orbital insertion | Current status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MESSENGER | 18 March 2011 | Deliberately crashed into surface 30 April 2015. Impact probably around 54.4° N, 149.9° W, near the crater Janáček. | First Mercury orbiter |
Venus
| Mission | Country/agency | Orbital insertion | Current status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Venera 9 | 22 October 1975 | Mission terminated on March 22, 1976 | First Venus orbiter | |
| Venera 10 | 23 October 1975 | Contact lost sometime in June 1976 | ||
| Pioneer Venus Orbiter | 4 December 1978 | Contact lost 8 October 1992; Atmospheric entry disintegration on 22 October 1992. | ||
| Venera 15 | 10 October 1983 | Contact lost January 5, 1985 | ||
| Venera 16 | 11 October 1983 | Contact lost June 13, 1984 | ||
| Magellan | 7 August 1990 | Contact lost 13 October 1994. Deliberately deorbited into Venus' atmosphere. | ||
| Venus Express | 11 April 2006 | Contact lost 16 December 2014: Atmospheric entry disintegration in January 2015 | ||
| Akatsuki | 7 December 2015 | Active |
Moon

| Mission | Country/agency | Orbital insertion | Current status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luna 10[1] | 3 April 1966 | Contact lost 30 May 1966, probably decayed the same year | First extraterrestrial and Moon orbiter | |
| Lunar Orbiter 1 | 14 August 1966 | Impacted lunar surface 29 October 1966 | First United States of America extraterrestrial orbiter | |
| Luna 11[2] | 27 August 1966 | Contact lost 1 October 1966, probably decayed the same or following year | ||
| Luna 12 | 25 October 1966 | Contact lost 19 January 1967, probably decayed the same year | ||
| Lunar Orbiter 2 | Launched 6 November 1966 | Impacted lunar surface 11 October 1967 | ||
| Lunar Orbiter 3 | 8 February 1967 | Impacted lunar surface 9 October 1967 | ||
| Lunar Orbiter 4 | Launched 4 May 1967 | Contact lost 17 July 1967, impacted lunar surface 6 October 1967 | ||
| Explorer 35 | Launched 19 July 1967 | Deactivated 24 June 1973; impacted lunar surface in the middle to late 1970s | ||
| Lunar Orbiter 5 | 5 August 1967 | Deorbited; impacted lunar surface 31 January 1968 | ||
| Luna 14 | 10 April 1968 | Mission terminated 24 June 1968, its orbit probably decayed | ||
| Luna 19 | 2 October 1971 | Mission terminated 20 October 1972 and contact lost on 1 November 1972, probably decayed the following year | ||
| Explorer 49 | Launched 10 June 1973 | Contact lost August 1977, its orbit probably decayed | ||
| Luna 22 | 2 June 1974 | Mission terminated November 1975, its orbit probably decayed in 1976 | ||
| Apollo 8 | Launched 21 December 1968; entered orbit after 69 hrs | Left orbit after 10 orbits; splashdown on Earth | First crewed lunar orbit | |
| Apollo 10 | Launched 18 May 1969 | Left orbit 26 May 1969 | ||
| Apollo 11 | July 19, 1969 | July 21, 1969; Lunar module ascent stage abandoned in orbit, impact site unknown | First human Moon landing | |
| Apollo 12 | November 18, 1969 | November 21, 1969 | Human Moon landing | |
| Apollo 14 | February 4, 1971 | February 7, 1971 | Human Moon landing | |
| Apollo 15 | July 29, 1971 | August 4, 1971 | Human Moon landing | |
| Apollo 15 subsatellite (PFS-1) | August 4, 1971 | January 1973 | ||
| Apollo 16 | April 19, 1972 | April 25, 1972; Lunar module ascent stage abandoned in orbit, impact site unknown | Human Moon landing | |
| Apollo 16 subsatellite (PFS-2) | April 24, 1972 | May 29, 1972 | ||
| Apollo 17 | December 11, 1972 | December 14, 1972 | Human Moon landing | |
| Hiten and Hagoromo | Hiten: 15 February 1993 | Hiten was deliberately deorbited and impacted the lunar surface 10 April 1993 | First Japan ese lunar orbiter | |
| Clementine | Launched 25 January 1994 | Left lunar orbit and entered heliocentric orbit; contact lost June 1994 | ||
| Lunar Prospector | Launched 7 January 1998 | Deliberately deorbited; impacted lunar surface 31 July 1999 | ||
| SMART-1 | 11 November 2004 | Deliberately deorbited; impacted lunar surface 3 September 2006 | ||
| SELENE (Kaguya, Okina and Ouna) | 3 October 2007 | Deliberately deorbited; impacted lunar surface 10 June 2009 | ||
| Chang'e 1 | 5 November 2007 | Deliberately deorbited 1 March 2009; impacted the Moon's surface. | First China lunar orbiter | |
| Chandrayaan-1 | 8 November 2008 | Deliberately crashed into lunar surface. Impact probe remained operational for a few days. Contact lost 29 August 2009. | First India n lunar orbiter | |
| Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter[3] | 23 June 2009 | Active | ||
| Chang'e 2 | 6 October 2010 | Left lunar orbit 8 June 2011; currently in deep-space orbit | ||
| ARTEMIS P1 | 2 July 2011 | Active | ||
| ARTEMIS P2[4] | 17 July 2011 | Active | ||
| Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) | 31 December 2011 / 1 January 2012 | Both spacecraft were deliberately deorbited and impacted on the lunar surface 17 December 2012 | ||
| LADEE | 6 October 2013 | Deliberately deorbited 18 April 2014 | ||
| Chang'e 3 | 6 December 2013 | Landed on lunar surface 14 December 2013 | First Chinese lunar landing | |
| Chang'e 5-T1 | 13 January 2015 | Returned to Earth on 31 October 2014 | ||
| Chang'e 4 | 12 December 2018 | Landed on lunar surface 3 January 2019. The Queqiao relay satellite was placed in an Earth-Moon L2 halo orbit. | First lunar far-side landing | |
| Longjiang-2 microsatellite | 25 May 2018 | Deorbited 2019 | ||
| Beresheet | 4 April 2019 | Crashed onto lunar surface 11 April 2019 | First private lunar lander. Successfully orbited for 7 days. Soft landing failed. | |
| Chandrayaan-2 | 20 August 2019 | Orbiter is active. The Vikram lander lost contact at 2.1 km from the lunar surface, and was subsequently destroyed.[5] | It was originally thought that Vikram had survived the impact, and ISRO continued trying to contact the lander until the lunar night.[6] | |
| Chang'e 5 | 1 December 2020 | Orbiter is (As of 2022) in lunar DRO orbit. | First lunar sample return mission by China. Ascent stage deorbited on 7 December 2020. Capsule successfully returned sample via service module on 16 December 2020. The orbiter will make lunar flyby in extended mission on 9 September 2021 in Distant retrograde orbit.[7] | |
| CAPSTONE | 14 November 2022 | Active and on a Near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) | Lunar orbiting CubeSat that will test and verify the calculated orbital stability planned for the Gateway space station. | |
| Artemis 1 | 25 November 2022 | Remained on a Selenocentric orbit (DRO) until 5 December 2022, then returned back to Earth | First mission of the Artemis program. | |
| LunaH-Map | 25 November 2022 | Decayed 20 February 2023 | ||
| Lunar IceCube | 25 November 2022 | On a Selenocentric orbit | Contact lost shortly after the launch. Conducted lunar flyby on 21 November 2022, likely in a heliocentric orbit. | |
| Danuri KPLO | 16 December 2022 | On a Selenocentric orbit | Lunar Orbiter by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) of South Korea . The orbiter, its science payload and ground control infrastructure are technology demonstrators. The orbiter will also be tasked with surveying lunar resources such as water ice, uranium, helium-3, silicon, and aluminium, and produce a topographic map to help select future lunar landing sites. | |
| Hakuto-R Mission 1 | 21 March 2023 | Crashed onto lunar surface on 25 April 2023 | Carried the emirati Rashid and the japanese SORA-Q lunar rovers. Contact lost during landing attempt. | |
| Chandrayaan-3 | 5 August 2023 | Success (returned to Earth Orbit) | Propulsion module, also functioning as a Chandrayaan-3 relay satellite. Conducted 4 flybys enroute return to Earth's orbit. | |
| Luna 25 | 16 August 2023 | Crashed onto lunar surface on 19 August 2023 | Lunar south pole lander, landing scheduled for 21 August 2023. Contact lost after orbit lowering maneuver. | |
| SLIM | 25 December 2023 | Landed on Lunar surface on 19 January 2024 | Carried the japanese LEV-1 and LEV-2 lunar rovers. First Japanese soft landing. |
Mars
| Mission | Country/agency | Orbital insertion | Current status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mariner 9 | 14 November 1971 | Deactivated 27 October 1972. In derelict orbit around Mars, expected to decay no sooner than 2022[8] | First spacecraft to orbit another planet
First Mars orbiter | |
| Mars 2 orbiter | 27 November 1971 [9] | Mission terminated 22 August 1972; spacecraft in derelict orbit | First Soviet spacecraft to orbit Mars | |
| Mars 3 orbiter | 2 December 1971[9] | Mission terminated on August 22, 1972 | ||
| Mars 5 orbiter[10] | 12 February 1974 | Contact lost on 28 February 1974 due to a loss of pressurization in the transmitter [11] | ||
| Viking 1 orbiter | 19 June 1976 | Mission terminated 17 August 1980, spacecraft in derelict high altitude orbit. | ||
| Viking 2 orbiter | 7 August 1976 | Mission terminated 25 July 1978, spacecraft in derelict high altitude orbit. | ||
| Phobos 2[12] | 29 January 1989 | Contact lost 27 March 1989 | ||
| Mars Global Surveyor | 11 September 1997 | Contact lost 2 November 2006; In derelict orbit around Mars, expected to decay no sooner than 2047[13] | ||
| 2001 Mars Odyssey | 24 October 2001 | Active | Longest-surviving, continuously active spacecraft in orbit around another planet | |
| Mars Express | 20 December 2003 | Active | ||
| Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter | 10 March 2006 | Active | ||
| MAVEN | 22 September 2014 | Active | ||
| Mars Orbiter Mission | 24 September 2014 | Contact lost April 2022[14] | India 's first interplanetary mission | |
| ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter | 19 October 2016 | Active | Carried Schiaparelli EDM lander | |
| Emirates Mars Mission (Hope) |
9 February 2021 | Active | United Arab Emirates's first interplanetary mission | |
| Tianwen 1 | 10 February 2021 | Active |
Jupiter
| Mission | Country/agency | Orbital insertion | Current status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Galileo | 8 December 1995 | Intentionally deorbited and incinerated in Jupiter's atmosphere 21 September 2003 | First Jupiter orbiter | |
| Juno | 4 July 2016 | Active | ||
| JUICE | July 2031 (planned) | en route | mission to study Jupiter's three icy moons Callisto, Europa and Ganymede, eventually orbiting Ganymede as the first spacecraft to orbit a satellite of another planet. |
Saturn
| Mission | Country/agency | Orbital insertion | Current status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cassini-Huygens | 1 July 2004 | Intentionally deorbited and incinerated in Saturn's atmosphere 15 September 2017 | First Saturn orbiter |
Minor planets and comets
| Mission | Country/agency | Object | Orbital insertion | Current status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NEAR Shoemaker | 433 Eros | 14 February 2000 | Landed 12 February 2001 on the surface of Eros. | First spacecraft to orbit an asteroid | |
| Dawn | 4 Vesta | 16 July 2011 | Left Vesta orbit 5 September 2012 | ||
| Dawn | Ceres | 9 March 2015 | Mission concluded 1 November 2018. In derelict orbit around Ceres, expected to decay no sooner than 2038[15] | First spacecraft to achieve orbit around two separate objects and to orbit a dwarf planet. | |
| Rosetta | 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko | 6 August 2014 | On 30 September 2016, ended its mission by landing on the comet in its Ma'at region. | First spacecraft to orbit a comet. Philae lander module successfully landed on 12 November 2014 | |
| OSIRIS-REx | 101955 Bennu | 31 December 2018 | Collected surface sample and departed from Bennu on 20 October 2020[16] | Smallest body to be orbited by spacecraft and closest ever orbit[17][18] |
References
- ↑ NSSDC - Luna 10
- ↑ NSSDC - Luna 11
- ↑ Where is LRO?
- ↑ Hendrix, Susan (25 March 2015). "Second ARTEMIS Spacecraft Successfully Enters Lunar Orbit". The Sun-Earth Connection: Heliophysics. NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/artemis/news/P2-lunarOrbit.html.
- ↑ Chang, Kenneth (2019-12-06). "A Billion Pixels and the Search for India's Crashed Moon Lander" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/science/india-moon-mission-vikram-found.html.
- ↑ "Chandrayaan-2: Isro, not losing hope, continues to make all-out efforts to restore link with lander 'Vikram'" (in en). September 9, 2019. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/isro-not-losing-hope-continues-to-make-all-out-efforts-to-restore-link-with-lander-vikram/articleshow/71045854.cms.
- ↑ "China's Chang'e-5 orbiter is heading back to the moon" (in en-US). 2021-09-06. https://spacenews.com/chinas-change-5-orbiter-is-heading-back-to-the-moon/.
- ↑ NASA - This Month in NASA History: Mariner 9 , November 29, 2011 — Vol. 4, Issue 9
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "NASA Mars log". http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/programmissions/missions/log/.
- ↑ Historic Spacecraft - Mars Probes
- ↑ "Mars 5". US National Space Science Data Centre. https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1973-049A.
- ↑ Encyclopedia Astronautica Fobos 1F
- ↑ Dunn, Marcia (27 October 1996). "NASA Takes No Dirty Chances With Mars Rover". Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-10-27-mn-58293-story.html.
- ↑ https://www.isro.gov.in/MOM_NationalMeet_2022SEP.html
- ↑ Chang, Kenneth (November 1, 2018). "NASA's Dawn Mission to the Asteroid Belt Says Good Night - Launched in 2007, the spacecraft discovered bright spots on Ceres and forbidding terrain on Vesta.". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/science/nasa-dawn-ceres-vesta-asteroids-end.html.
- ↑ Chang, Kenneth (20 October 2020). "Seeking Solar System's Secrets, NASA's OSIRIS-REX Mission Touches Bennu Asteroid - The spacecraft attempted to suck up rocks and dirt from the asteroid, which could aid humanity's ability to divert one that might slam into Earth.". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/science/osiris-rex-mission.html.
- ↑ "NASA'S OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Arrives at Asteroid Bennu". NASA. 2018-12-03. https://www.asteroidmission.org/?latest-news=nasas-osiris-rex-spacecraft-arrives-asteroid-bennu.
- ↑ "NASA's OSIRIS-REx Mission Breaks Another Orbit Record". NASA. 2019-06-13. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/osiris-rex-breaks-another-orbit-record.
See also
- Lunar orbit
- Circumlunar trajectory
- List of minor planets and comets visited by spacecraft
- List of landings on extraterrestrial bodies
- List of interplanetary voyages
- Satellite system

