Image of Mariner 2. Courtesy of NASA/JPL

Satellites and robot spacecraft are important to space exploration. They let us explore space safely. Click on the link below to learn more about these missions.

Canada's first space telescope, MOST, was launched in June 2003 to study pulsating stars. Europe has a similar mission called CoRoT, which is also searching for distant worlds. In February 2009, NASA will launch a related satellite called Kepler.

Also launched in June 2003, the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) mission will send two robot rovers to Mars.

Mars Express is another mission to the Red Planet. Mars Express was developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). It reached Mars in December 2003.

A mission called Stardust flew close to a comet in January 2004. It will bring a small sample of dust from the comet back to Earth so scientists can study it.

New Horizons will fly past Pluto in 2015. It blasted off in January 2006.

Some missions, such as Aura and AIM, study Earth's atmosphere, weather, and climate.

Phoenix Mars Lander will land near the North Pole of Mars in May 2008. It will use its robotic arm to scoop up soil and to search for water ice. The LRO & LCROSS missions, launched in June 2009, are mapping Earth's Moon and searching for water ice near the Moon's South Pole.