List of missions to minor planets

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List of missions to minor planets

List of missions to minor planets is a listing of spaceflight missions to minor planets, which are category of astronomical body that excludes planets, moons and comets, but orbit the Sun. Most missions to minor planets have been to asteroids or dwarf planets.

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An artist's impression of New Horizons' close encounter with the Plutonian system

Spacecraft visits to minor planets have mostly been flybys, and have ranged from dedicated missions to incidental flybys and targets of opportunity for spacecraft that have already completed their missions. The first spacecraft to visit an asteroid was Pioneer 10, which flew past an unnamed asteroid on 2 August 1972; a distant incidental encounter while the probe was en route to Jupiter. The first dedicated mission was NEAR Shoemaker, which was launched in February 1996, and entered orbit around 433 Eros in February 2000, having first flown past 253 Mathilde. NEAR was also the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid, surviving what was intended to be an impact with Eros at 20:01 on 12 February 2001 at the planned end of its mission. As a result of its unexpected survival, the spacecraft's mission was extended until 1 March to allow data to be collected from the surface.

Missions

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Perspective

There have been thirty-three overall missions towards minor planets, with four of them being flyby missions that were not intended to explore minor planets, marked in grey background.[1][2]

Many minor planets are in two domains:

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Statistics

Major milestones

Legend

  Milestone achieved
  Milestone not achieved
First to achieve

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Asteroid belt
Country/Agency Flyby Orbit Impact Touchdown Lander Hopper Rover Sample return
United States United States Pioneer 10, (unnamed asteroid) 1972 NEAR Shoemaker, (Eros) 2000 NEAR Shoemaker, (Eros) 2001 † OSIRIS-REx, 2020 OSIRIS-REx, 2023
Japan Japan SCI, (Ryugu) 2014 Hayabusa, (Itokawa) 2005 HIBOU and OWL, (Ryugu) 2018 Hayabusa, (Itokawa) 2010 †
ESA Rosetta, (Šteins) 2008 Rosetta, (Churyumov–Gerasimenko) 2014 Philae, (Churyumov–Gerasimenko) 2014
China China Chang'e 2, (Toutatis) 2012
Italy Italy LICIACube, (Didymos system) 2022
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Kuiper belt
Country/Agency Flyby Orbit
United States United States New Horizons, (Pluto) 2015
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Future missions

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See also

Notes

  1. The same spacecfraft used for Bennu mission will be used in studying Apophis. While the spacecraft remained same, only the mission was renamed as OSIRIS-APEX.

References

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