List of missions to minor planets

List of missions to minor planets is a listing of spaceflight missions to minor planets, which are category of astronomical body that excludes planets, moons and comets, but orbit the Sun. Most missions to minor planets have been to asteroids or dwarf planets.

Spacecraft visits to minor planets have mostly been flybys, and have ranged from dedicated missions to incidental flybys and targets of opportunity for spacecraft that have already completed their missions. The first spacecraft to visit an asteroid was Pioneer 10, which flew past an unnamed asteroid on 2 august 1972; a distant incidental encounter while the probe was en route to Jupiter. The first dedicated mission was NEAR Shoemaker, which was launched in February 1996, and entered orbit around 433 Eros in February 2000, having first flown past 253 Mathilde. NEAR was also the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid, surviving what was intended to be an impact with Eros at 20:01 on 12 February 2001 at the planned end of its mission. As a result of its unexpected survival, the spacecraft's mission was extended until 1 March to allow data to be collected from the surface.

Many minor planets are in two rings:

• Asteroid belt, between 2-3 AU
• Kuiper belt, between 30-60 AU

Spacecraft	Launch date[1]	Targeted minor planet	Mission	Outcome	Remarks	Carrier rocket[2]
Pioneer 10	2 March 1972	Unnamed asteroid[3]	Flyby	N/A	Distant incidental flyby en route to Jupiter; flyby occurred one 2 August 1972 with closest approach of 8.85 million kilometers (5.5 million miles).	Atlas SLV-3C Centaur-D Star-37E
		307 Nike		N/A	Distant incidental flyby en route to Jupiter; flyby occurred on 2 December 1972 with closest approach of 8.8 million kilometers (5.4 million miles).	Atlas SLV-3C Centaur-D Star-37E
Galileo	18 October 1989	951 Gaspra		Successful	Incidental flyby en route to Jupiter; flyby occurred on 29 October 1991 with closest approach of 1,604 kilometres (997 mi) at 22:37 UTC[4]	Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-34 / IUS
		243 Ida		Successful	Incidental flyby en route to Jupiter, discovered Dactyl; flyby occurred on 28 August 1993 with closest approach of 2,410 kilometres (1,500 mi) at 16:51:59 UTC[4]
Clementine (DSPSE)	25 January 1994	1620 Geographos	Flyby	Spacecraft failure	Attitude control failure; failed to leave geocentric orbit after first phase of mission exploring the Moon. Flyby had been planned for August 1994[5]	Titan II(23)G
NEAR Shoemaker (Discovery 1)	17 February 1996	253 Mathilde		Successful	Closest approach 1,212 kilometres (753 mi) at 12:56 UTC on 27 June 1997[6]	Delta II 7925
		433 Eros	Orbiter	Mostly successful	Aborted burn three days before arrival at Eros resulted in failure to enter orbit, instead flew past at 3,827 kilometres (2,378 mi) at 18:41:23 on 23 December 1998. Insertion reattempted successfully on 14 February 2000. Impacted asteroid at 20:01 on 12 February 2001 at end of mission, but survived impact and continued to operate on surface until 1 March.[6]
Cassini–Huygens	15 October 1997[1]	2685 Masursky	Flyby	N/A	Distant incidental flyby en route to Saturn; closest approach 1.5 million kilometres (0.9 million miles) at 09:58 UTC on 23 January 2000[7]	Titan IV(401)B Centaur-T[8]
Deep Space 1	24 October 1998	4015 Wilson–Harrington[9]	Flyby	Spacecraft failure	Spacecraft was unable to reach the asteroid due to ion engine operation being suspended while a problem with the probe's star tracker was investigated[10]	Delta II 7326
		9969 Braille		Partial failure	Closest approach 28.3 kilometres (17.6 mi) at 04:46 UTC[10] on 29 July 1999. Intended to pass within 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) but this was not achieved due to a computer failure; poor-quality images returned as a result.[11] Flyby added to mission following loss of ability to reach Wilson–Harrington
Stardust (Discovery 4)	7 February 1999	5535 Annefrank[12]		Successful	Closest approach of 3,079 kilometres (1,913 mi) at 04:50:20 UTC on 2 November 2002	Delta II 7426
Hayabusa (MUSES-C)	9 May 2003	25143 Itokawa	Orbiter/lander Sample return	Partial failure	Reached Itokawa on 12 September 2005, landed briefly on 19 and 25 November but sampler failed to operate, missed return window due to communications outage, finally returned to Earth on 13 June 2010	M-V
MINERVA			Lander	Failure	Deployed from Hayabusa on 12 November 2005; Accidentally released while Hayabusa was moving away from Itokawa; reached escape velocity and drifted off into heliocentric orbit
Rosetta	2 March 2004	2867 Šteins	Flyby	Successful	Closest approach 800 kilometres (500 mi) on 5 September 2008	Ariane 5G+
		21 Lutetia		Successful	Closest approach 3,162 kilometres (1,965 mi) on 10 July 2010
Deep Impact (Discovery 7)	12 January 2005	(163249) 2002 GT		Spacecraft failure (Extended mission)	Extended mission (EPOXI), flyby was expected in 2020, but communication with the spacecraft was lost in August 2013	Delta II 7925
New Horizons (New Frontiers 1)	19 January 2006	132524 APL	Flyby	N/A	Incidental flyby en route to Pluto, closest approach 101,867 kilometres (63,297 mi) at 04:05 UTC on 13 June 2006	Atlas V 551
		134340 Pluto and its five moons.	Flyby	Successful	Flyby occurred on 14 July 2015
		486958 Arrokoth		Successful	Flyby occurred on 1 January 2019
Dawn (Discovery 9)	27 September 2007	4 Vesta	Orbiter	Successful	Orbited Vesta from 16 July 2011 to 5 September 2012, before departing for Ceres	Delta II 7925H
		1 Ceres		Successful	Arrived in 2015
Chang'e-2	1 October 2010	4179 Toutatis	Flyby	Successful	Flyby on 13 December 2012, closest approach 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi)	Long March 3C
Hayabusa2	3 December 2014	162173 Ryugu	Orbiter/lander Sample return	Successful	Arrived in 2018, landed in February and July 2019 Sample returned to Earth on 5 December 2020 UTC	H-IIA 202
HIBOU			Lander	Successful	Deployed from Hayabusa2 on 21 September 2018
OWL				Successful	Deployed from Hayabusa2 on 21 September 2018
MINERVA II-2				Spacecraft failure	Deployed from Hayabusa2 on 2 October 2019; lander failed prior to deployment, but was deployed anyway to observe the effects of gravity on it as it descended to the surface.
MASCOT				Successful	Deployed from Hayabusa2 on 3 October 2018; operated for 17 hours
SCI impactor			Impactor	Successful	Deployed from Hayabusa2 on 5 April 2019
DCAM-3			Orbiter	Successful	Deployed from Hayabusa2 on 5 April 2019; observed SCI impact
PROCYON		(185851) 2000 DP107	Flyby	Spacecraft failure	Flyby had been planned for 2016; cancelled due to ion engine failure in heliocentric orbit[13]
OSIRIS-REx (New Frontiers 3)	8 September 2016	101955 Bennu	Orbiter Sample return	Operational	Orbiting 101955 Bennu since 31 December 2018	Atlas V 411
Lucy (Discovery 13)	2021	52246 Donaldjohanson	Flyby	Planned	20 April 2025	Atlas V 401
		3548 Eurybates		Planned	12 August 2027
		15094 Polymele		Planned	15 September 2027
		11351 Leucus		Planned	18 April 2028
		21900 Orus		Planned	11 November 2028
		617 Patroclus		Planned	2 March 2033
ZhengHe	2022	469219 Kamoʻoalewa	Orbiter/lander Sample return	Planned	2024[14]	Long March 3B
Psyche (Discovery 14)	2022	16 Psyche	Orbiter	Planned	2026[15]	Falcon Heavy
DESTINY+	2023	3200 Phaethon	Flyby	Planned	2028[16]	Epsilon

See also

• List of minor planets and comets visited by spacecraft
• List of missions to comets

References

1. McDowell, Jonathan. "Launch Log". Jonathan's Space Page. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
2. Krebs, Gunter. "Interplanetary Probes". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
3. "45 Years Ago, Pioneer 10 First to Explore Jupiter". It [pioneer 10] passed within 5.5 million miles of an unnamed 0.5-mile diameter asteroid on Aug. 2
4. "Solar System Exploration - Galileo". NASA. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
5. "Solar System Exploration - Clementine". NASA. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
6. "Solar System Exploration - NEAR Shoemaker". NASA. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
7. "Solar System Exploration - Cassini". NASA. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
8. Krebs, Gunter. "Cassini". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
9. Wilson–Harrington is catalogued as both a comet and an asteroid
10. "Solar System Exploration - Deep Space 1". NASA. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
11. Rayman, Marc D.; Varghese, Philip (2001). "The Deep Space 1 Extended Mission" (PDF). Acta Astronautica. 48 (5–12): 693–705. Bibcode:2001AcAau..48..693R. doi:10.1016/s0094-5765(01)00044-3.
12. "STARDUST Successfully Images Asteroid Annefrank During Dress Rehearsal". NASA. 4 November 2002. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
13. "Due to ion engine failure, PROCYON will not fly by an asteroid".
14. Foust, Jeff (5 August 2020). "China is moving ahead with lunar south pole and near-Earth asteroid missions". SpaceNews. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
15. Foust, Jeff (28 February 2020). "Falcon Heavy to launch NASA Psyche asteroid mission". SpaceNews. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
16. Sommer, M.; Krüger, H.; Srama, R.; Hirai, T.; Kobayashi, M.; Arai, T.; Sasaki, S.; Kimura, H.; Moragas-Klostermeyer, G.; Strub, P.; Lohse, A.-K. (21 September 2020). Destiny+ Dust Analyzer – Campaign & timeline preparation for interplanetary & interstellar dust observation during the 4-year transfer phase from Earth to Phaethon. Europlanet Science Congress 2020. Copernicus Publications. Retrieved 27 September 2020.