Scroll down to view all space missions that took place between 1970 and 1974 or select another time period from the table below.
| 1955 - 1959 | 1960 - 1964 | 1965 - 1969 | 1970 - 1974 | 1975 - 1979 | 1980 - 1984 |
| 1985 - 1989 | 1990 - 1994 | 1995 - 1999 | 2000 - 2004 | 2005 - PRESENT | FUTURE |
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The early seventies saw the last of the manned missions to the Moon and the beginning of exploration of other parts of the Solar System, including Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury and the Sun. |
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| LAUNCH DATE | NAME | DESTINATION | COUNTRY | MISSION DETAILS | MAIN ACHIEVEMENT | CURRENT STATUS | |
| 11th April 1970 | Apollo 13 | Moon | USA |
Apollo 13 was the third attempt to send humans to the surface to the Moon. An explosion onboard during the journey to the Moon meant that the Moon landing had to be aborted and the space craft had to return to Earth. Power had to be conserved in the Command Module and the Lunar Module was used as a lifeboat to support the crew. A combination of skill and ingenuity meant that the crew returned to Earth safely, with Apollo 13 being referred to as a successful failure. | Successfully made it back to Earth despite a explosion on board. | Apollo 13's Command Module (Odyssey) splashed down on 17th April 1970. The Lunar Module (Aquarius) was jettisoned and re-entered Earth's atmosphere, burning up as it descended. | |
| 17th August 1970 | Venera 7 (Venus 7) | Venus | USSR |
First mission to send back information from another planet's surface. Venera 7 landed on Venus' surface on 15th December 1970 and operated for 23 minutes after doing so. It confirmed the high temperatures and pressure at the surface of Venus. | First space craft ever to send information back from another planet's surface. | The inactive Venera 7 now rests on the surface of Venus at coordinates 5° S, 351° E | |
| 12th September 1970 | Luna 16 (Lunik 16) | Moon | USSR |
Luna 16 completed a soft landing on the surface of the Moon on 20th September 1970, took soil samples and returned them to Earth. This was the first Soviet mission to do this, and the first mission to do it robotically. | First unmanned launch of a craft from the Moon back to Earth. First fully automatic sample return mission. | Luna 16's lower stage of its lander communicated data but now lies inactive in the Sea of Fertility at 0.41° S, 56.18° E. The soil and rock samples returned were shared with French and American scientists. | |
| 20th October 1970 | Zond 8 | Moon | USSR |
Flyby mission of the Moon. Zond 8 took images of the Moon and Earth during its journey, flying past the Moon on 24th October 1970. | . | Zond 8 splashed down in the Indian Ocean on 27th October 1970. | |
| 10th November 1970 | Luna 17 (Lunik 17) | Moon | USSR |
Luna 17 completed a soft landing on the Moon. Part of its payload was a robotic rover (Lunokhod 1), the first of its kind, which drove off the lander and explored the surface, taking soil samples and images. It travelled just over 10 kilometres and operated for 322 Earth days. | First use of a rover on an extra-terrestrial surface. | Last communication with the rover was on 14th September 1971. Attempts to regain contact ended on 4th October 1971. Luna 17 and Lunokhod 1 both lie inactive in the Sea of Rains at 38.17° N, -35° W. | |
| 31st January 1971 | Apollo 14 | Moon | USA |
Third manned landing on the Moon. Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa were sent to the Moon with Shepard and Mitchell being the astronauts that descended to the surface, landing in the planned landing site of Apollo 13. | Astronauts smuggled a golf club and two balls onto Apollo 14. | Apollo 14 splashed down on 9th February 1971. The Command Module (Kitty Hawk) is on display at the Astronaut Hall of Fame in Titusville, Florida. Lunar Module (Antares) crashed back onto the Moon after being jettisoned, lying at coordinates 3.72° south, 19.67° west. | |
| 8th May 1971 | Mariner 8 | Mars | USA |
Failed mission to orbit Mars. Successfully launched from Earth but control was lost before the craft to go to Mars separated from the booster. The craft fell back into Earth's atmosphere and crashed in the Atlantic about 560km north of Puerto Rico. | First attempt at a Mars orbiter | Launch Failure | |
| 10th May 1971 | Cosmos 419 | Mars | USSR |
Possible intended Mars orbiter, aimed at getting there before the USA's Mariner 8. Successfully launched into Earth orbit from where the probe would be launched to Mars. This launch failed because the timer which was to launch the probe to Mars was set to ignite it after 1.5 years instead of 1.5 hours! The probe eventually fell back to Earth and was named Cosmos 419 (any Soviet mission which remained in Earth orbit instead of going to its destination was designated as a Cosmos mission). | If successful, would probably have overtaken Mariner 8 (above) on its route to Mars to become the first Mars orbiter. Mariner 8 also failed to launch. | Failed to leave Earth orbit and re-entered Earth's atmosphere on 12th May 1971. | |
| 19th May 1971 | Mars 2 | Mars | USSR |
Mars orbiter, lander and rover, twinned with Mars 3. Mars 2 successfully entered into an orbit around Mars on 27th November 1971 and from December 1971 to March 1972, completing an orbit every 18 hours and operated for 30 minutes during each orbit. It sent back data about the Red Planet (that's Mars!), including 60 images and information about the planet's gravity, magnetic field, chemical makeup, surface temperature and pressure. It continued transmitting until August 1962 after completing 362 orbits. Its lander should have provided data and images from the surface of Mars, but its parachute failed to deploy and the lander crashed to the surface. A Rover on board would have been released to explore the planet on skis (!?) while attached to the lander. | The Mars 2 lander was the first manmade object to land on Mars (despite being in pieces when it got there!) | Orbiter inactive but still in orbit around Mars. Lander lies inactive (and in pieces!) at 45 deg S, 313 deg W | |
| 28th May 1971 | Mars 3 | Mars | USSR |
Twinned with Mars 2 and almost identical in design and purpose. Mars 3 lost fuel, so couldn't be entered into its planned orbit around the planet. Instead of taking 25 hours to orbit Mars as planned, it took over 12 days to complete an orbit. It still sent back information and images similar to that provided by Mars 2. When the mission ended in August 1972, it had completed about 20 orbits. Mars 3's lander completed a soft landing on the planet and sent back information but for only 20 seconds. This may have been due to a technical failure on the lander or the orbiter receiving its signals, or a strong Martian dust storm. A partial image revealed nothing apart from poor surface light (again, this could have been from the dust storm). | First mission to send signals from the surface of Mars. | Orbiter still inactive but in orbit around Mars. Lander lies inactive at | |
| 30th May 1971 | Mariner 9 | Mars | USA |
Mars orbiter. Launched after Mars 2 and 3 of the Soviet Union but got there first! The mission was intended to map 80% of the surface of Mars and analyse data from the planet's two moons, Phobos and Deimos. When Mariner 9 arrived, there was a massive dust storm on Mars, so the probe was programmed from Earth to delay imaging of the planet for two months. Previous missions to Mars had revealed a cratered surface like the Moon's, but Mariner 9 revealed huge canyons (e.g. Vallis Marineris) massive extinct volcanoes (e.g. Olympus Mons), dried river beds and water erosion, confirming the existence of water in the planet's history, weather systems like fog and wind. This got scientists very excited! Photographs of Phobos and Deimos were also taken. | First spacecraft to enter the orbit of another planet. Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar System, was discovered by Mariner 9. Vallis Marineris was named in honour of this Mariner mission. | Inactive but still in orbit around Mars. | |
| 26th July 1971 | Apollo 15 | Moon | USA |
Fourth manned landing on the Moon. David Scott, Alfred Worden and James Irwin were the astronauts that went to the Moon with Scott and Worden landing on its surface. They used the first Lunar Rover during this mission, enabling them to explore a greater area while on the Moon. | First use of a manned wheeled vehicle in space. | Apollo 15 splashed down on 7th August 1971. The Command Module (Endeavour) is now on display at National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The Lunar Module would have crashed back to the surface of the Moon. The Lunar Rover was parked up on the Moon at coordinates 26°13' N, 158°13' W. | |
| 2nd September 1971 | Luna 18 (Lunik 18) | Moon | USSR |
Luna 18 was intended to be a sample return mission to the Moon and back to Earth. The mission went well right up to landing. As the very moment that the craft should have landed on the Moon's surface on 11th September 1971, contact was lost. The Soviets put this down to the complexity of the landing terrain. | . | Luna 18 lies inactive on the Moon at 3°34' north, -56°30' east. | |
| 28th September 1971 | Luna 19 (Lunik 19) | Moon | USSR |
Luna 19 was an orbiter that was sent to the Moon and entered orbit on 3rd October 1971. It completed about 4,315 orbits of the Moon, sending back information about the Moon and data about charged particles from the solar wind. It also sent back images of a mountainous region on the Moon's surface. | Longest lasting mission to that date of a Luna series space craft. | The last communication with Luna 19 was on 20th October 1972. The inactive craft may still be in an orbit of the Moon. | |
| 14th February 1972 | Luna 20 (Lunik 20) | Moon | USSR |
After the failure of Luna 18, Luna 20 was sent to the Moon to land on its surface, obtain soil samples, and return them to Earth. The craft landed on the Moon on 21st February 1972, took some photographs and scooped up some Moon soil. The following day, it launched from the Moon's surface to return to Earth, landing in the Soviet Union on 25th February 1972. | . | Luna 20 landed on Earth on 25th February 1972. Samples of Moon soil and rocks were recovered the next day. Some of the samples were shared with scientists in America and France. The lower stage of Luna 20's lander remains on the Moon's surface at 3° 32' north, -56° 33' east. | |
| 27th March 1972 | Venera 8 (Venus 8) | Venus | USSR |
Lander probe which sent back signals from Venus' surface, using a refrigeration system to keep cool during its descent. Venera 8 measured the level of light on the planet, revealing that it is about the same as on Earth on an overcast day. It sent back data for 50 minutes, 11 seconds. | . | The inactive Venera 8 now rests on the surface of Venus at coordinates 10.70° S, 335.25° E | |
| 16th April 1972 | Apollo 16 | Moon | USA |
Apollo's penultimate manned mission to the Moon. Astronauts John Young, Charles Duke and Ken Mattingly successfully arrived at the Moon with Young and Duke walking on its surface from 21st April 1972. Like Apollo 15, they used a Lunar Rover to explore the mountainous area of their landing. | . | Apollo 16 returned to Earth on 27th April 1972. The landing site on the Moon was 8° 58' south, 15° 30' east in the Descartes Highlands. Command Module Casper is now on display at the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Lunar Module will have impacted the Moon at an unknown location. | |
| 19th April 1971 | Salyut 1 | Earth | USSR |
Salyut became the first space station to be placed in Earth orbit. Unlike a satellite or a spacecraft, a space station is like a laboratory/docking station in space. They are an important stage in the possibility of man one day living in space. The first residents of Salyut 1 were Soviet cosmonauts G.T. Dobrovolsky, V.N. Volkov, and V.I. Patsayev who were taken there on 6th June 1971. Sadly, they were killed during their return to Earth on 29th June 1971. | First space station | Salyut 1 re-entered Earth's atmosphere and was mostly burned up on 11th October 1971. | |
| 7th December 1972 | Apollo 17 | Moon | USA |
Final manned mission to the surface of the Moon. Astronauts Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt and Ron Evans flew onboard Apollo 17 with Cernan and Schmitt walking on the Moon's surface. Eugene Cernan took the last steps to this date on the Moon on 14th December 1972. | Final manned mission to the Moon. Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt hold the record for the longest length of time for humans to be present on the Moon. | Apollo 17 returned to Earth on 19th December 1972. Command Module America is on display at Space Center Houston in Texas. Lunar Module Challenger would have crashed back to the Moon's surface. | |
| 8th January 1973 | Luna 21 (Lunik 21) | Moon | USSR |
A lander rover was sent to the Moon to conduct experiments and send back images at surface level. On its travels, the rover Lunokhod 2 sent back over 80,000 images. However, on 9th May 1973, it fell into a crater. Its solar panels were covered by dust which prevented them from receiving sunlight. The rover lost its power and the Soviet Union announced the end of the mission on 3rd June 1973. | Lunokhod 2 was helped in its navigation using images of the Moon's surface that were provided to a Soviet engineer by an American scientist. | Contact was lost with Luna 21 and the end of its mission was announced on 3rd June 1973. In is now inactive at 25°51' N, – 30° 27' E. | |
| 3rd March 1973 | Pioneer 10 | Jupiter | USA |
First spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt and make close-up observations of Jupiter when it reached the planet on 3rd November 1973. Designed as a "rehearsal" for later Voyager missions, Pioneer was used to test to see whether a spacecraft could make it through the Asteroid Belt and survive the radiation around Jupiter. After visiting Jupiter, it continued its journey through the Solar System. It passed Neptune's orbit in 1983 and has since sent back information from the outer edges of the Solar System. Information was used until 1997 until its signal could only be used as a aid to train flight controllers on how to pick up radio signals from space. The very last signal from Pioneer 10 was picked up on 23rd January 2003. An attempt to contact the craft failed on 7th February. Another final attempt was made on 4th March 2006 but no signal could be picked up. | Became the first manmade object to travel beyond the orbits of the eight planets. | Contact lost in 2003. The craft may still be active but is too far away from Earth for a signal to be picked up. It is now on its way to the star Aldebaran, a journey which will take over 2 million years. On the spacecraft is a plaque with diagrams of a man and a woman, symbols representing Earth and a map of the Solar System, so if any aliens happen to find Pioneer 10, they can bring it back! | |
| 5th April 1973 | Pioneer 11 | Jupiter and Saturn. | USA |
Twin mission of Pioneer 10, but which visited both Jupiter and Saturn in the same mission, unlike Pioneer 10. It reached Jupiter on 2nd December 1974 and after imaging the planet, went on to visit Saturn using a gravity assist method that the later Voyager missions would use. It reached Saturn on 1st December 1979 and sent back images of the planet and its rings. Because the Voyager probes were also on their way to Saturn, Pioneer 11 was used as a guinea pig to see if it received any damage by flying through Saturn's rings, seeing as this would be something the Voyager missions would do later. Scientists would rather have lost the Pioneer probe than their Voyager probes. Pioneer 11 survived and after leaving Saturn, began its journey which would eventually take it out of the Solar System. Signals from the craft stopped being received in November 1995. | Discovered a thick atmosphere on Saturn's moon, Titan. | Communication lost in 1995, although it is possible that Pioneer 11 is still transmitting. Earth may have lost its alignment with the craft's antenna and may now be too far away too pick up a signal. Pioneer 11 is the slowest moving of 4 spacecrafts currently on their way out of the Solar System, expected to reach the region of another star in about 4 million years. | |
| 14th May 1973 | Skylab | Earth | USA |
Skylab became the first American space station to be placed into orbit. The first astronauts were sent to Skylab on 25th May 1973. Two further manned crews were sent to Skylab to July and November 1973. | First American space station. | Skylab gradually lost its position in orbit. Missions to place it higher in orbit failed to receive funding and the space station fell into Earth's atmosphere in 1979. Most of its parts burned up during re-entry although some debris did reach the surface. Some parts landed in the Australian town of Esperance. The town fined the United Stated $400 for littering! (a fine which has not yet been paid!). | |
| 21st July 1973 | Mars 4 | Mars | USSR |
Mars 4, 5, 6 and 7 were a quadruple attempt to reach Mars before the Americans with their Viking orbiters and landers in 1975. Mars 4 and 5 didn't have landers but would have been placed in orbit around Mars to receive signals back from the Mars 6 and 7 landers as well as make their own observations. A technical fault prevented the craft from being able to slow down to enter orbit around Mars once it reached the planet on 10th February 1974, so it flew straight past, sending back some images and data. | . | Now inactive but in orbit around the Sun. | |
| 25th July 1973 | Mars 5 | Mars | USSR |
Twin orbiter with Mars 4. It reached Mars on 12th February 1974 and was placed into an orbit around the planet. It completed 22 orbits over 9 days before transmissions stopped due to the loss of pressurisation in the transmitter housing (or something broke!). | . | Inactive in orbit around Mars. | |
| 5th August 1973 | Mars 6 | Mars | USSR |
Mars 6 successfully reached Mars on 12th March 1974 and a lander was deployed from the "bus" to descend to the planet's surface. Communications from the lander lasted for about 224 seconds before coming to a sudden stop, probably when the lander reached Mars' surface. The information send back about the planet's atmosphere during the landers descent was unreadable because of a problem with the computer chip on board the "bus" still in space. . | First data from the atmosphere of Mars, despite most of it being useless by being unreadable. | The Mars 6 bus is inactive in orbit around the Sun. The lander lies inactive at 23.90° S, 19.42° W on the surface of Mars. | |
| 9th August 1973 | Mars 7 | Mars | USSR |
Mars 7 reached Mars but the lander was released 4 hours too early meaning that it missed Mars. Both the bus and the lander went into orbits around the Sun. All Mars missions from 4 to 7 suffered from a computer chip flaw which meant that during the journey to Mars, the operation of the spacecraft's systems degraded. This meant that all of the missions were doomed from the start and none succeeded in their aim. | . | Bus and lander are in orbit around the Sun. | |
| 3rd November 1973 | Mariner 10 | Venus and Mercury |
USA
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The first mission to use the gravity of one planet to get to another. Before reaching Mercury in March 1974, Mariner 10 visited Venus. It was captured by Venus' gravity and built up velocity as it orbited the Sun with Venus. It was then released from Venus' gravity and flung to Mercury. The space craft was actually put into orbit around the Sun and completed three flybys of Mercury, the first from 29th March 1974, the 2nd from 21st September 1974 and the final one from 16th March 1975. | First spacecraft to visit Mercury, first spacecraft to use Gravity Assist. | Transmissions stopped on 24th March 1975, spacecraft is currently most likely to be in orbit around the Sun. | |
| 29th May 1974 | Luna 22 (Lunik 22) | Moon | USSR |
Soviet orbiter of the Moon. It entered lunar orbit on 2nd June 1974 and recorded information about the Moon's magnetic field, gamma ray emissions, rock composition and gravitational field. It also sent back images of the Moon. | Luna 22 was the Soviet Union and Russia's last orbiter of the Moon. | Luna 22 ran out of propellant used to maneuveur on 2nd September. The mission was ended on 1st November 1975 after 521 days and 3,875 orbits. The inactive craft may still be in orbit around the Moon. | |
| 28th October 1974 | Luna 23 (Lunik 23) | Moon | USSR |
Soviet lander designed to return a sample of Moon rock and soil back to Earth. It was designed to dig deeper than the previous Luna 16 and Luna 20 missions that also returned soil. However, during landing on 6th November, the equipment used to drill was damaged so Luna 23 conducted experiments while on the Moon's surface instead of returning to Earth. | . | Communications ended with Luna 23 on 9th November 1974. The inactive craft now rests at coordinates ~12° north - ~62° east. | |
| 10th November 1974 | Helios 1 | The Sun |
USA and (West) Germany
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A joint mission with NASA and Germany. The space craft was built by Germany and launched by NASA. It orbited the Sun in an elliptical orbit from as far away as Earth orbits the Sun to as close as 47 million kilometres away from it (within Mercury's orbit). It span every second to ensure that the craft received an equal amount of heat from the Sun (Germans like an all-over tan!). It discovered that at that within Mercury's orbit there were 15 times as many small meteorites (micro-meteorites) than near Earth. It continued to send back information until late 1982. | Helios 1 was one of the first cooperative missions between two nations. | Helios 1 stopped transmitting in 1982 but remains in an orbit around the Sun. | |
| 1955 - 1959 | 1960 - 1964 | 1965 - 1969 | 1970 - 1974 | 1975 - 1979 | 1980 - 1984 |
| 1985 - 1989 | 1990 - 1994 | 1995 - 1999 | 2000 - 2004 | 2005 - PRESENT | FUTURE |
