NASA’s Deep Space Missions Through the Years

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has had some incredible missions over the course of its 63 year existence. From the iconic Apollo trips to the moon in the 1960s to the MAVEN mission to Mars, NASA has explored many areas of our solar system, though there is much more to discover.

This visualization, posted by Reddit user Thryloz on the r/space subreddit, depicts NASA’s deep space missions since the organization’s establishment in 1958.

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The image uses route maps to visualize NASA’s deep space launches throughout history. While they don’t depict the exact paths, they do show the launches’ destinations and the decades during which the space journeys were taken. It documents the many trips we’ve taken to the moon as well as the milestone voyage of Voyager 2 around Neptune. Each space program is given color-coded lines, making the origins of the voyages easy to trace.

Perhaps the most famous NASA missions in history are the Apollo trips. The goal of the Apollo 11 mission was to land Americans on the Moon, and that goal was achieved. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin led their crew to land on the moon. The next day, Armstrong became the first human to step onto the lunar surface. Overall, Armstrong and Aldrin spent nearly 22 hours on the surface of the Moon during the mission. Other notable NASA missions include the landing of the Mars Pathfinder in 1997, the first flyby of Jupiter by the Pioneer 10 in 1973, and the first flyby of Pluto by New Horizons in 2015.