NASA Missions, Explained

Field guides to the spacecraft NASA is flying right now. Facts reviewed by hand, stories straight from NASA.

Active Missions

NASA's program to return astronauts to the Moon and build toward the first crewed missions to Mars.

The most powerful space telescope ever built, seeing the universe in infrared from a million miles away.

NASA's newest Mars rover, hunting for signs of ancient life and caching samples for return to Earth.

Humanity's laboratory in orbit, continuously crewed since November 2000.

The crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket that carry Artemis astronauts to the Moon.

The telescope that changed astronomy, still doing frontier science after three decades in orbit.

The rover that proved ancient Mars could have supported life, still climbing a Martian mountain.

NASA's largest planetary spacecraft, headed to Jupiter's ocean moon to ask if it could host life.

A journey to a metal asteroid that may be the exposed core of a dead planet.

The fastest spacecraft ever built, flying through the Sun's atmosphere again and again.

Twin probes launched in 1977, now the only spacecraft reporting from interstellar space.

A small telescope measuring the polarization of X-rays from black holes, pulsars, and exploded stars.

NASA buys rides: private spacecraft carrying astronauts to the space station.