Space Vehicles
Manned/Unmmaned
Unmanned
Explorer 1, launched on Jan. 31, 1958, was the first U.S. satellite to orbit the Earth. Its successful flight made the United States the second nation to be in space, following the Soviets who had launched Sputnik 1 just four months earlier. Between 1958 and 1981 there were 56 more Explorer space crafts to reach space.
Project Pioneer
Pioneer Missions were designed to study our Sun's environment and the planets. The Pioneer Project started in 1958 and continued to 1978. The last Pioneer Mission, despite it officially ending in 1997, when Pioneer 10 got a weak signal.
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Ranger Project
The goal of the seven Ranger Missions during the early 1960's was for the U.S to obtain the first close-up pictures of the Moon. Each spacecraft was to fly straight down to the Moon's surface and return photographs, however, they were destroyed on impact. Only the Ranger 7, 8, and 9 missions were successful, with each returning thousands of photographs of the lunar surface. Neither Ranger 3 or 5 were able to impact the Moon, while Rangers 4 and 6 reached its surface but didn't return any images.
Mariners
The 10 Mariner missions of the 1960's and early 70's were all flybys designed to visit nearby planets in our solar system. Seven were successful, reaching Venus, Mars, and Mercury. Mariner 2 was the first interplanetary spacecraft, successfully traveling to Venus in 1962 and discovering its fire-hot surface temperature. The fifth Mariner mission visited Venus five years later and performed atmospheric experiments.
Our first close-up glimpse of the planet Mars was from Mariner 4 in 1965, which revealed a terrain covered with craters. Mariners 6, 7, and 9 also reached Mars, also known as the red planet, and returned information on its surface and atmospheric composition. The ninth mission mapped 100% of the Martian surface and photographed its two moons. Mariner 10 was the last in the Mariner sequence, which visited both Venus and Mercury.
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Surveyor
The Surveyor Missions of 1966 - 1968 were the next step towards space travel to the Moon. The goal was to perform a soft lunar landing without the Surveyor being destroyed. Five of seven Surveyor Missions were successful, landing safely on the moon and conducting the first soil analysis. From the Surveyor program, we learned that the lunar surface is firm and can be walked on by astronauts, something accomplished by the Apollo Missions.
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble began to be designed and constructed in the 1970's. Later, it was to be launched in 1990 from Space Shuttle Discovery. The project was joint between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The observatory and its many instruments orbit the Earth at approximately 600 km above the surface. The instruments include cameras that take pictures of distant objects and spectrographs that analyze incoming light. The Hubble is expected to continue operating through 2015-2020.
Phoenix Mars Lander
The Phoenix Mars Lander is a spacecraft that NASA sent to Mars, which landed near the North Pole of Mars. Scientists theorized that there was water ice just below the surface in the landed area. If it was true there was water ice, it could give us clues about the possibility of life on Mars. If Phoenix finds ice in during exploration, it will use its instruments to analyze it. Spending 9 months on its cruise flight to Mars, it blasted off from Florida in August 2007. Finally, the Phoenix landed on the northern plains of Mars on May 25, 2008.
Dragon
SpaceX's spacecraft Dragon is one of the first reusable rocket.
Manned
Project Mercury (1959–1963, manned missions from 1961)
Project Mercury was the first NASA program to place American astronauts in space, with their first flight in 1961. Astronauts made a total of six spaceflights during Project Mercury, two of which flights, also known as suborbital flights, reached space and came returned. The remaining four of the six spaceflights went into orbit and circled the Earth, ending the spaceflights in 1963.
The X-15
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Conceived in the 1952-1954 period, which was before Sputnik, made on the 4th of October 1957, and the birth of NASA, which was on the 1st of October 1958, the North American Aviation-built rocket plane was intended to pioneer the technologies and techniques of hypersonic flight, which is of flight faster than Mach 4, making it four times the speed of sound. Between 1959 and 1968, three X-15 rocket planes, two modified B-52 bombers, and a dozen pilots took part in 199 joint U.S. Air Force/NASA X-15's research missions. Before the start of each mission, an X-15 was mounted on a pylon attached to the wing of a B-52 carrier aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base in California. By the late 1960's, the X-15’s throttle was able to reach 600,000-horsepower. With that, the X.L.R.99 rocket engine was ready. This engine was designed to burn nine tons in of anhydrous ammonia fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer for 90 seconds at full throttle.
Project Gemini (1962–1966, manned missions from 1965)
The Gemini program consisted a total of 19 launches, 2 initial unmanned test missions, 7 target vehicles, and 10 manned missions, each of which carried two astronauts to the Earth's orbit. Designed as a bridge between the Mercury and Apollo programs, the Gemini program mainly tested equipment, mission procedures, trained astronauts, and ground crews for future Apollo missions. The general objectives of the program included: long duration flights, testing the ability to maneuver a spacecraft, achieving rendezvous, the docking of two vehicles in Earth orbit, training of both flight and ground crews, conducting experiments in space, extravehicular operations (sessions and spacewalks), active control of reentry to achieve a precise landing, and onboard orbital navigation. The Project Gemini lasted for periods ranging from 5 hours to 14 days.