The objective of very many of the space flights was the moon because, after all, it is our nearest neighbor.
But other planets were also being researched more and more. After the first attempts both in the Soviet Union and in the United States in 1958 failed, a Russian probe called Luna 2 launched in 1959 reached the moon.
From then on, both countries launched entire series of spaceships to the moon.
In October 1959, Luna 3 delivered its first photographs of the side of the moon that is always facing away from the earth.
The American Ranger 7 transmitted numerous images of the surface of the moon from different heights, so that it could be seen from close up for the first time.
In 1966 and 1967, the first soft landings without any destruction of the moon probes took place.
During all these flights, all the attention was only directed towards when the first human would finally step on the moon.
Alongside a large number of photographs, chemical analyses were also carried out, and a suitable landing point for the Apollo mission was selected.
Two more Russian special flights, Luna 16 and 17, brought back geological samples to the earth (Luna 16) and used a remote-controlled vehicle, which again transmitted numerous images.
It was believed that the American "Clementine", launched in 1994, had discovered what had been postulated since 1961, namely that there were ice surfaces on the moon.
A huge crater, the Aitken Basin, was investigated.
It has a diameter of 25,000 kilometers and a depth of 12 kilometers. They found a large area here, about 100 square kilometers in size, which is composed of lunar soil and probably ice as well. Apart from the moon, Mars and Venus have also been "visited" by space_probes.
There have also been flights that have gone past other planets and comets within our solar system, with the exception of Pluto. The first pictures from Mars were taken by the US probe Mariner 4 during a flight past the planet in 1965.
A few years later, the Russians were successful in landing their probe Mars 3 on the surface of Mars and collecting information on the temperature and the atmosphere on that planet.
After many visits to Mars by probes from both countries, analyses of meteor samples that had been brought back from Mars indicated primitive forms of life and the presence of water in the early ages on Mars.
Special cameras were used by the Mars Global Surveyor to map the entire surface of Mars.
It was also found that Mars is surrounded by a magnetic_field. The Russian probes Venera 7 to 16 visited Venus.
They succeeded in measuring the temperature and examining the surface of Venus and its atmosphere chemically. In 1978, Pioneer Venus 1 and 2 from the United States mapped the surface of Venus and investigated the interrelationship between the atmosphere of Venus and solar_winds. Mercury was also examined.
In 1973 / 74, the space_probe Mariner 10 closed to within about 700 kilometers of the planet and showed that the surface of Mercury is very similar to that of the moon with its numerous craters.
Later, a magnetic field surrounding Mercury was also discovered. Similar findings were made on Jupiter and Saturn.
The first success in reaching the interstellar space outside the solar system was achieved with Pioneer 10 (1974).
The probe Galileo, launched in 1978, flew close to the planetary moons of Jupiter, Ganymede, Io, Europa and Kallisto.
It provided impressive pictures and new knowledge. The Cassini was launched in 1997 specifically to examine the Saturn rings and its moons.
It will send out a probe that will later land on the moon Titan. In the case of Uranus, the Voyager 2 probe provided new knowledge.
With its help, ten new moons as well as four additional rings were discovered in 1986.
As it continued its flight, six more moons of Neptune were found. It is hoped that the Voyager 1 and 2 and Pioneer 10 and 11 probes will lead to many new discoveries in interstellar space.
They will carry out measurements there for the first time.
