History of Space Exploration . ... Space History Introduction . ... Chronology of Solar System Discovery This is a partial list of past, present, and future planetary and solar missions; for a complete account, please see the Space Exploration Chronology. Space exploration is becoming increasingly internationalized; as a result, the national designations listed here are not completely representative of the true nature of all projects. ... Apollo Lunar Surface Journal . ... Mariner Missions . ...

Mathilde . ... On June 27, 1997 the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft flew flew past asteroid 253 Mathilde. ... On June 27, 1997 NEAR made a spectatular 25 minute flyby of Mathilde which resulted in more than 500 images of a dark, crater-battered little world that dates to the beginning of the solar system. ... This first image of asteroid 253 Mathilde, returned by the NEAR spacecraft just before 10:00 AM EDT on June 27, 1997, was taken from a distance of 1800 kilometers (1120 miles). ...

... Spacecraft . ... To space by cannon? Finally, the deep space explorers --spacecraft which break away from the Earth's gravity . ... The "Luna" series of the USSR conducted 7 soft landing of unmanned probes, two of them with wheeled robotic "Lunokhods," and two of those missions returned samples to Earth. Others spacecraft have visited the major planets of the Solar system. ... The Mariner series have explored Venus and Mars--and Mariner 10 even reached Mercury, for three separate encounters! ...

Cosmic Research, Vol. 42, No. 5, 2004, pp. 435­488. Translated from Kosmicheskie Issledovaniya, Vol. 42, No. 5, 2004, pp. 453­508. Original Russian Text Copyright © 2004 by Veselovsky, Panasyuk, Avdyushin, Bazilevskaya, Belov, Bogachev, Bogod, Bogomolov, Bothmer, Boyarchuk, Vashenyuk, Vlasov, Gnezdilov, Gorgutsa, Grechnev, Denisov, Dmitriev, Dryer, Yermolaev, Eroshenko, Zherebtsov, Zhitnik, Zhukov, Zastenker, Zelenyi, Zeldovich, Ivanov-Kholodnyi, Ignat'ev, Ishkov, Kolomiytsev, Krasheninnikov, Kudela,