Space Agencies
Six national and multinational agencies account for nearly everything humanity has done off-planet: every crewed flight, every landing on another world, every probe still transmitting from deep space. Each gets a room here — how it started, the machine that defines it, and what the record actually shows.
NASA
Six crewed lunar landings between 1969 and 1972 put twelve astronauts on the surface. Both Voyager probes are still transmitting from interstellar space.
ESA
Twenty-two member states, one launch programme. Landed Huygens on Titan in 2005 — the farthest landing ever performed — and Philae on comet 67P in 2014.
Roscosmos
First satellite, first human in orbit, first spacewalk, first space station. Soyuz has carried crew continuously since 1967.
CNSA
Excluded from the ISS by US law in 2011; built its own. Tiangong has been continuously crewed since June 2022, and the Chang'e run is six-for-six including both far-side firsts.
ISRO
Mars orbit on a first attempt in 2014, for roughly US$73M. Chandrayaan-3 made the first soft landing near the lunar south pole in August 2023.
JAXA
Hayabusa returned the first pristine asteroid sample in 2010. SLIM made the first pinpoint landing on another world in January 2024 — about ten metres from its target.