Project Swift

Project Swift, launched during the 1980s, was a joint effort between the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom to explore the sun and its vicinities. Because of mass limitations on spacecraft and the deep gravity well they would plunge into, the Swift missions are known as being some of the most roundabout probes ever launched, making several pass-bys of Earth and Venus before arriving inside of Mercury’s orbit. The missions added much information about how Earth’s nearest star works, along with the discovery of several Vulcanoids. The project was named after Edgar Swift, who was actually a Confederate astronomer who died in 1938, who claimed to have discovered a belt of asteroids inside of Mercury, the asteroid he discovered was named Vulcan.

Swift 1 (1981): The first of the Swift missions, reached an orbit of 0.2 Astronomical Units in 1989. Its mission was to investigate the solar neutrino problem. The probe operated until 1995, when it abruptly went off-line. It is believed Swift 1 was struck by a micrometeor.

Swift 2 (1990): Swift 2 actually focused on Mercury, and arrived at the planet in 1998. The probe entered polar orbit and began extensive mapping of the planet. A small lander was dropped into a deep crater at the north pole, in attempt to find water hidden in shadow.

Swift 3 (2005): Arrived in the vicinity of the claimed asteroid belt in 2015. Swift 3 confirmed the existence of Vulcan, a 201 kilometer wide asteroid that orbits only twenty million kilometers from the sun. Vulcan is tidally locked, as it turned out most vulcanoids would be. Swift 3 was knocked out in late 2016 by a coronal mass ejection, which came nowhere close to Earth.

Swift 4 (2020): Swift 4 was the largest and last mission to be launched. Along with solar observation instruments, it carried three impactor-landers. Due to fuel constraints, it was quite impossible at the time for sample return mission from the vulcanoids. One of the impactors landed on Vulcan and examined the regolith. A second landed on a fifty kilometer wide asteroid. The third was launched into the sun’s corona, taking samples and relaying data back to Earth until it finally melted and evaporated.

Project Pioneer

Project Pioneer was an interplanetary probe series created by the United States and their NASA program. The project consisted of fly-by missions to the planets, paving a path for future orbiters and landers. The program began in 1961, after Kennedy announced that America would beat Sweden, Germany and the Dutch to the moon. Afterwards, it served to be the first American probe to all the planets.

Pioneer 1: (1961) Blew up in flight

Pioneer 2: (1961) Fly-by of the moon

Pioneer 3: (1962) Failed to separate from booster

Pioneer 4: (1963) Succesfully launched to Mars; electronic failure in flight.

Pioneer 5: (1963) First American fly-by of Mars

Pioneer 6: (1965) Flew past Venus; failed before it could reach Mercury.

Pioneer 7: (1966) Flew past Venus, then Mercury

Pioneer 8: (1968) Blew up on launch pad

Pioneer 9: (1971) Passed through Asteroid Belt; first fly-by of Jupiter.

Pioneer 10: (1973) Second fly-by of Jupiter

Pioneer 11: (1977) First of the Grand Tour fly-by missions; sling shot past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Pioneer 12: (1977) Second Grand Tour mission.

Project Herschel

Project Herschel is one of the many follow up missions from Project Pioneer, this time designed to study Uranus and its moons. Because of the low activity and plain appearance of the planet, Uranus was the last to be studied in depth. The project included the launch of several orbiters and landers, all of which were launched from the surface of the moon. The project was overseen by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the United States up until 2090, where it was taken over by Americans on Luna. By the Nanotechnology Revolution, the price of probes dropped below the floor as a new module design was developed and could be put together molecule by molecule.

Herschel (2038): Spent five years orbiting Uranus, scanning the planet and its five moonlets.
Herschel 2 (2049): Spent six years orbiting the planet, and sent a probe into its atmosphere.
Herschel 3 (2060): Was designed to land a lander on Miranda, but the rocket exploded shortly after launching from Luna.
Herschel 4 (2064): Functions for ten years in orbit of Uranus. Sends a lander to Miranda, which contains a sample return rocket. Sample is returned to Luna.
Herschel 5 (2084): Spends ten years in orbit around Uranus. Send a hot air balloon into the planet’s atmosphere, which function for several weeks.
Herschel 6 (2102): The last and largest mission. Three sample return missions; one for Uranus, one for its rings, and one for unusual formations found on Titania during the last mission. The orbiter remained in orbit for twenty years.

Project Galileo

Project Galileo was launched by the United States in 1985 as a follow-up to the fly-by of Jupiter by the Pioneer Probes. The primary concern of the first Galileo mission was that of studying the planet Jupiter itself. A small probe, designed by the French Space Agency, hitched a ride on Galileo I and was ejected for a one-way trip through Jupiter’s atmosphere. As it happened, the probe hit one of the driest spots in the planet’s atmosphere, detecting only trace amounts of water vapor. Galileo did take pictures and readings from the Galilean moons as it passed. Even after Pioneer, which where not in the proper place for decent pictures, the moons were assumed to be uninteresting. Galileo I’s biggest shock was that of volcanic activity on Io, and what appeared to be a copy of the Arctic Ocean on Europa. Further Galileo missions were launched to study the moons in the 21st Century, first from Earth, then later from the surface of Luna.

Galileo I (1985): First orbiter of Jupiter. Launched atmospheric probe. Was later turned to focus on the moons as their attributes became widely known.

Galileo II (2001): Passed through the Jupiter-Io flux tube and had its communications disabled.

Galileo III (2008): Carried the Io lander, which successfully landed near a lava flow. Functioned for three hours.

Galileo IV (2008): Carried Europa lander, which crashed and was unable to send back data. Galileo IV entered orbit around Europa and further mapped the planet and its ocean.

Galileo V (2020): Launched from the surface of the moon. Delivered a submersible that was successfully landed on Europa and melted through the ice. Discovered evidence of biological activity, though no indisputable evidence of life.

Galileo VI (2034): Sample return mission for Io.

Galileo VII (2034): Ganymede lander; sample return rocket failed to ignite.

Galileo VIII (2054): The Europa Biochemical Laboratory successfully touched down on Europa and began a five year mission. A small rover collected samples from cracks and faults in the ice. Biological activity confirmed, yet again no samples of lifeforms discovered.