* 1960 – Echo 1A, NASA's first successful communications satellite, is launched.

* 1962 – NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.

As of February 2012, NASA's Kepler mission had identified 2, 321 unconfirmed planetary candidates associated with 1, 790 host stars, based on the first sixteen months of data from the space-based telescope.

* 1996 – NASA's Discovery Program begins as the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft lifts off on the first mission ever to orbit and land on an asteroid, 433 Eros.

* 2005 – Space Shuttle program: STS-114 Mission – Launch of Discovery, NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003.

* 1974 – NASA's Mariner 10 becomes the first spaceprobe to fly by Mercury.

He made his first space flight, as command pilot of Gemini 8, in 1966, becoming NASA's first civilian astronaut to fly in space.

In 2010 scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope were surprised to discover, for the first time, that a nova can also emit gamma-rays (> 100 MeV ).

During NASA's funding of the project, an administrator would be first informed with the intention of informing the United States executive government.

Space Shuttle Challenger ( NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-099 ) was NASA's second Space Shuttle orbiter to be put into service, Columbia having been the first.

After its first flight in April 1983, Challenger quickly became the workhorse of NASA's Space Shuttle fleet, flying far more missions per year than Columbia.

Space Shuttle Columbia ( NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-102 ) was the first spaceworthy Space Shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet.

** NASA's Explorer 1, the first American satellite and Explorer program spacecraft, reenters Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit.

* July 11 – NASA's first orbiting space station Skylab begins its return to Earth, after being in orbit for 6 years and 2 months.

As part of NASA's wider Mariner program, Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 ( Mariner Mars 69A and Mariner Mars 69B ) completed the first dual mission to Mars in 1969.

On 8 November 1985, Stephen Edberg ( then serving as the Coordinator for Amateur Observations at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory ) and Charles Morris were the first to observe Halley's comet with the naked eye in its 1986 apparition.

Kepler is NASA's first mission capable of finding Earth-size and smaller planets.

The near-Earth object was the first near-Earth object detected by NASA's latest NEO program to be given a positive rating on the scale of 0. 06, indicating a higher-than-background threat.

( also written ( 89959 ) 2002 NT7 ) is a near-Earth object ( NEO ) with a diameter of 1. 2 miles ( 2 kilometers ) that became the first object observed by NASA's NEO program to be assigned a positive rating on the Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale, for a potential impact on February 1, 2019.

Pioneer 1 was NASA's first space probe intended to reach the Moon.

Development started in 1956 at NASA's Lewis Research Center, now the Glenn Research Center, but proceeded slowly, with the first ( unsuccessful ) test flight in May 1962.

Viking 1 was the first of two spacecraft sent to Mars as part of NASA's Viking program.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan announced the Teacher in Space Project, and McAuliffe learned about NASA's efforts to find the first civilian, an educator, to fly into space.

Since The Voyage Home was the first Star Trek film to show the operations at Starfleet Command, Bennett and Nimoy visited NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to learn how a real deep space command center might look and operate.

The four-seat aircraft was powered by a single Pratt & Whitney Canada PW610F turbofan and was built in secrecy at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia by Swift Engineering and Basis.

* 1962 – NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.

In 2009, India's Chandrayaan-1 satellite, NASA's Cassini spacecraft and the Deep Impact probe have each detected the presence of water by evidence of hydroxyl fragments on the Moon.

By December 15, 2010 it broke the record for longest serving spacecraft at Mars, with 3, 340 days of operation, claiming the title from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor.

The spacecraft was designed by Max Faget and NASA's Space Task Group.

* Orion ( spacecraft ), NASA's Space Shuttle replacement

* 2001 – NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter's moon Io.

* 2004 – NASA's unmanned spacecraft Genesis crash-lands when its parachute fails to open.

NASA reported the detection of water molecules by NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in September 2009.

* NASA's spacecraft Pathfinder lands on Mars and deploys a small roving vehicle, Sojourner, which analyzes the planet's geology and atmosphere.

* January 23 – The last signal is received from NASA's Pioneer 10 spacecraft, some 7. 5 billion miles from Earth.

* Astrid spacecraft description — NASA's National Space Science Data Center site

NASA's 2. 3 kW NSTAR ion thruster for the Deep Space 1 spacecraft during a hot fire test at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

By the end of 2012 cargo supply to the International Space Station will be flown by privately owned commercial craft under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services by SpaceX's successfully tested the partially reusable Dragon spacecraft, and Orbital Sciences ' Cygnus spacecraft ( also slated for testing in 2012 ).

Mariner 3 ( together with Mariner 4 known as Mariner-Mars 1964 ) was one of two identical deep-space probes designed and built by Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( JPL ) for NASA's Mariner Mars 1964 Project that were intended to conduct close-up ( flyby ) scientific observations of the planet Mars and transmit information on interplanetary space and the space surrounding Mars, televised images of the Martian surface and occultation data of spacecraft radio signals as affected by the Martian atmosphere back to Earth.

Structural engineers investigating NASA's next Mars-bound spacecraft, the Phoenix ( spacecraft ) | Phoenix Mars Lander

* The MAVEN spacecraft, part of NASA's Mars Scout Program, is set to launch in 2013.

* August 24 – The NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will cross the orbit of Neptune after 8½ years and journey on to Pluto.

* NASA's Dawn spacecraft is expected to arrive at the dwarf planet Ceres.

* July 14 – NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is expected to fly by Pluto and Charon at 50, 000 kilometers per hour and explore the area for five months, until the distance becomes too great.

* NASA's Juno spacecraft is expected to arrive at Jupiter.