Man's landings on other bodies

[Zed]

My son and I got to talking about the different
places where man has actually made contact with
other things in the universe. We came up with
the Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and we counted
Saturn because one of the probes when through
the rings. Also, asteroid 433 Eros has a space
craft setting on it's surface right now. Comets
Halley and Giacobini-Zinner have had probes pass
through the coma. Probe Giotto hit so much dust
while going through the coma of Halley that it
lost almost half of it's instruments. We decided
to consider that a "contact."

My question is this: Are there other bodies where
man has actually touched the place with a probe?
We thought that maybe Io or Europa had seen probes
land or crash on the surface. Does anybody know of
a web site that chronicles the encounters with
other planets and various objects in our Solar
System? Have there been any probes to the Sun?

[SEDShead]

Your list is fairly complete... there have been two recent probes to study the Sun, although neither has impacted. The Ulysses Mission (http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov/) has been going for some time. Also, we recently launched a solar "sample return" mission called Genesis (http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/) . It collects the solar wind, and will return its samples to Earth in a few years.

As for keeping up with the missions, you'll just need to check the respective web sites. Starting at www.jpl.nasa.gov is a good start, as they do most of the interplanetary missions.

[PhysBrain]

JPL does manage most of the planetary probes. However, Johns Hopkins Advanced Physics Lab also manages quite a few probes as well. This site (http://sd-www.jhuapl.edu/Programs/) lists pretty much every space probe project that they have ever taken part in or plan to in the near future. Most of their probes are involved in near-Earth observations, but they are also sending probes to comets, asteroids, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

[andyquinn]

I should point out that people other than the Americans have sent probes out onto space and to other bodies in the solar system. Most noteably the Russians of course who are the only nation to have succesfully landed on Venus.

As a European though I shall focus on ESA. The most noteable mission to date is of course Giotto as mentioned above. And of course the Huygens lander on board Cassini was built in Europe.

Currently there are several European missions under construction and in the planning phase which are intended to make contact with other bodies in the solar system. Such as the Beagle 2 lander to be launched on Mars Express next year and of course the Rosseta mission to renevouz with a comet. There is even the possibility that the European mission to Mercury will contain a lander.

To find out more about ESA science missions past present and future take a look at http://sci.esa.int/home/ourmissions/index.cfm

[Zed]

I was born in U.S.A. but I consider myself a citizen of the planet so I was counting the Soviet lander when I mentioned Venus. I have a poster hanging on my wall that shows the history of the early days of space exploration. It is frustrating to me because it has U.S. history on one side and U.S.S.R. history on the other. It is getting quite worn from being flipped over all the time.

I would like to see a list of all celestial bodies that have been actually touched by devices made by man. I have been unable to find such a list on the Internet though. When I was a kid it was easy to keep track of EVERY launch by (back then only) U.S.S.R. or U.S.A.! Now I find it difficult to find which planets and asteroids have been actually visited! That speaks of the profound changes that mankind has witnessed in these last few decades.

There have been similar advances in computing, medicine, physics, astronomy and on and on.

[bryce]

I believe there *was* a mission on the drawing boards to land a probe on Europa, but last I heard it was canned for some reason - budget or politics or both.

Too bad, it would have been cool. Maybe it will be revived some day, or a similar mission proposed.

And doesn't the Pluto fast flyby plan involve some sort of small penetrator/lander, or am I confusing that with a Mars or asteriod probe?

- bryce
(Hey, I resisted the temptation to make a joke about *me* landing on another body, when I tripped one day...oh...wait, I just did...)
;)

[Daniel]

The europa mission is indeed planned as a lander, and maybe one of the mercury missions is composed a lander.

[K6-III]

I consider it paramount to forego all else at this time and focus on a return to the moon...

....for with a magnetic launcher on the lunar surface, we can send probes out for next-to-nothing...