Current Missions
* Current missions are listed from earliest launch to most recent.

Voyager to the Outer Planets Launch Dates: August 20 and September 5, 1977    The twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and 2 flew by and observed Jupiter and Saturn, while Voyager 2 went on to visit Uranus and Neptune. Both craft are now heading out of the solar system. In 1998, Voyager 1 became the most distant human-made object in space.

Ulysses Solar Polar Mission Launch Date: October 6, 1990    A joint project between NASA and the European Space Agency, Ulysses for the first time sent a spacecraft out of the ecliptic - the plane in which Earth and other planets orbit the Sun - to study the Sun's north and south poles. The prime mission concluded in 1995 but Ulysses continues to monitor the Sun.

Wide Field and Planetary Camera Launch Date: December 2, 1993    The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is the main instrument aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope used for taking general pictures of stars, galaxies and planets. The instrument actually consists for four internal camera systems: three wide-field cameras, and one narrow-field camera.

Keck Interferometer First light: March 2001    The Keck Interferometer links two 10-meter (33-foot) telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The linked telescopes form the world's most powerful optical telescope system. They will be used to search for planets around nearby stars, as part of NASA's quest to find habitable, Earth-like planets. Telescope home page

Galaxy Evolution Explorer Launch: April 28, 2003    This mission uses ultraviolet wavelengths to measure the history of star formation 80 percent of the way back to the Big Bang.

Spitzer Space Telescope Launch: August 25, 2003, Eastern time (August 24, Pacific time)    Formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, this mission is using infrared technology to study celestial objects that are too cool, too dust-enshrouded or too far away to otherwise be seen. Spitzer, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, are all part of NASA's Great Observatories Program.

Future Missions
* Mission list begins with the earliest future launch.

Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer First Light; 2008    Two 8-meter (26-foot) telescopes on Mount Graham, Arizona will be connected. The ground-based telescope system will identify faint dust clouds around other stars that might hinder planet-finding missions. The mission is managed by the University of Arizona, Tucson in conjunction with multipe international partners. Mission home page

Herschel Space Observatory Scheduled Launch: 2008    The Herschel Space Observatory is a space-based telescope that will study the universe by the light of the far-infrared and submillimeter portions of the spectrum. JPL is making significant contributions to instruments on this European Space Agency mission. Mission home page

Planck Proposed Launch: 2008    Planck is a European Space Agency project to study the cosmic background. JPL is providing the following instrumentation: most or all of the detectors, both of the bolometers in the "high frequency" instrument and the heterodyne receivers in the "low frequency" instrument. Mission home page

Kepler Mission Proposed Launch: 2009    The Kepler Mission will search for Earth-like planets with the "transit" method. A one-meter diameter (39-inch) telescope equipped with the equivalent of 42 high quality digital cameras will continuously monitor the brightness of 100,000 stars, looking for planets that cross the lines-of-sight between Kepler and their parent stars. Mission home page

Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Planned Launch: 2009    This space-based telescope will scan the entire sky in infrared light, revealing cool stars, planetary construction zones and the brightest galaxies in the universe.

Mid Infrared Instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope Planned Launch: 2013    The James Webb Space Telescope, an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope scheduled for launch in August 2013. The telescope is designed to study the earliest galaxies and some of the first stars formed after the Big Bang. JPL is managing the development of the Mid Infrared Instrument, one of the three focal plane istruments on the space telescope. Goddard Space Flight Center manages the space telescope mission for NASA. + Instrument home page + James Webb Telescope site

Space Interferometry Mission Proposed Launch: Deferred indefinitely    This mission is an orbiting interferometer, which will link multiple telescopes to function in unison as a much larger "virtual telescope." The main goal is to detect planets of varying sizes-from huge planets the size of Jupiter down to planets a few times as massive as Earth.

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Proposed Missions
* Mission list begins with the earliest proposed launch.

Space Technology 7    JPL manages a technology to fly on the European Lisa Pathfinder mission.

Laser Interferometer Space Antenna Proposed Launch: To be determined    This mission will observe gravitational waves from binary stars both inside and beyond our galaxy, including gravitational waves generated in the vicinity of the very massive black holes found in the centers of many galaxies. The mission will consist of three spacecraft forming an equilateral triangle while traveling in space.

Terrestrial Planet Finder Proposed Launch: To be determined    This mission will use multiple telescopes working together to take family portraits of stars and their orbiting planets and determine which planets may have the right chemistry to sustain life.

Single Aperture Far-Infrared Observatory Proposed Launch: 2015    The Single Aperture Far-Infrared Observatory is a large cryogenic space-based telescope optimized for observations in the mid-infrared to submillimeter wavelength range. Mission home page

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Past Missions
* Mission list begins with the earliest launch.

Infrared Astronomical Satellite Launch Date: January 25, 1983    This satellite put an infrared telescope in orbit above the interference of Earth's atmosphere. The mission had many unexpected discoveries, including the discovery of solid material around the stars Vega and Fomalhaut.

Space Very Long Baseline Interferometry (Space VLBI) Launch Date: February 1997    Japan's Very Long Baseline Interferometry Space Observatory Program spacecraft is an international mission to study the distant universe, including black holes. The spacecraft's onboard radio astronomy antenna observes with ground radio antennas, including NASA's Deep Space Network, to create the equivalent of a radio-observing telescope bigger than Earth.

Wide-field Infrared Explorer Launch Date: March 4, 1999    The Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WIRE) was a small satellite carrying a cryogenically cooled infrared telescope designed to study starburst galaxies -- vast clouds of molecular gas cradling the sites of newborn stars.

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