Astrobotic Peregrine - First mission under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, launched in January 2024. The lander carried multiple science payloads bound for the Moon but experienced a propellant leak that prevented lunar landing.
Blue Ghost - Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander selected under NASA’s CLPS program. It carries 10 science and technology payloads to Mare Crisium to study the lunar regolith, magnetic fields, and geophysical properties.
Chandrayaan-3 - ISRO’s lunar mission that successfully soft-landed the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover near the lunar south pole in 2023. Pragyan is a six-wheeled rover that conducted in situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface.
Chang’e Program - China’s lunar exploration program operated by CNSA. Chang’e 4 achieved the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon in 2019 with the Yutu-2 rover; Chang’e 5 returned samples in 2020; and Chang’e 6 returned the first far-side samples in 2024.
Lunokhod Program - Soviet robotic lunar rover program that deployed the first remote-controlled rovers on another world. Lunokhod 1 (1970) and Lunokhod 2 (1973) traversed the lunar surface collecting soil data and imagery, pioneering planetary surface robotics.
LUPEX - Lunar Polar Exploration mission jointly developed by JAXA and ISRO. It aims to explore the lunar south pole with a rover equipped with a drill and instruments to investigate the presence and distribution of water ice.
Nova-C (Odysseus) - Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 lunar lander that became the first commercial spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon in February 2024. It landed near the Malapert A crater at the lunar south pole, carrying six NASA payloads.
SLIM - Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, JAXA’s precision lunar landing demonstrator that touched down in January 2024. It achieved pinpoint landing accuracy within 55 metres of its target using image-matching navigation, and deployed the LEV-1 and LEV-2 small rovers for surface exploration.
VIPER - Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, a NASA lunar rover designed to map water ice deposits at the Moon’s south pole.
ExoMars - ESA’s mission to search for signs of past life on Mars. Its Rosalind Franklin rover is designed to drill up to 2 metres below the Martian surface and carry analytical instruments to study subsurface samples for biosignatures. It is planned for launch in 2028.
Mars 2020 - NASA mission that landed the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter in Jezero Crater in 2021. Perseverance carries seven science instruments and a robotic arm with a drill for coring rock samples, while Ingenuity demonstrated the first powered, controlled flight on another planet, completing 72 flights over nearly three years.
Mars Exploration Rovers - NASA’s twin-rover mission that landed Spirit and Opportunity on Mars in 2004 to search for evidence of past water activity. Spirit operated until 2010 and Opportunity until 2018, far exceeding their 90-day design life and fundamentally advancing Mars geology.
Mars Pathfinder - NASA’s first rover mission to Mars, which landed in 1997. Its Sojourner rover, a 10.6 kg microrobot, demonstrated the feasibility of low-cost rover operations on Mars and conducted soil and rock analyses over 83 sols.
Mars Science Laboratory - NASA mission that landed the Curiosity rover in Gale Crater in 2012. Curiosity carries a suite of instruments including a laser spectrometer and a drill, and has been characterizing Mars’ climate, geology, and habitability potential.
Tianwen-1 - China’s first Mars mission, which landed the Zhurong rover in Utopia Planitia in 2021. The solar-powered rover conducted geological surveys and subsurface radar exploration of the Martian surface.
Dragonfly - NASA rotorcraft lander planned for Saturn’s moon Titan. The dual-quadcopter will fly between multiple landing sites to study Titan’s prebiotic chemistry and habitability, leveraging Titan’s dense atmosphere and low gravity.
Hayabusa2 - JAXA’s asteroid sample-return mission to Ryugu. It deployed multiple small rovers (MINERVA-II) and the MASCOT lander, collected subsurface samples via a kinetic impactor, and returned them to Earth in 2020.
MMX - Martian Moons eXploration, JAXA’s mission to return samples from Mars’s moon Phobos. It will deploy the IDEFIX rover to survey the surface and collect samples, marking the first sample return from the Martian system.
OSIRIS-REx - NASA’s asteroid sample-return mission to Bennu. It used a Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism to collect surface material and returned the sample to Earth in 2023, the largest asteroid sample ever collected.
Rosetta - ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft orbited comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and deployed the Philae lander in November 2014, achieving the first-ever landing on a comet. Philae collected surface data despite landing in a shadowed area.
Tianwen-2 - CNSA mission launched in 2025 to collect samples from near-Earth asteroid Kamoʻoalewa and return them to Earth. It combines asteroid sample collection with a subsequent flyby of a main-belt comet.