United States Space Exploration
Space launch site(s)
encompasses 20 spaceports that have been licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration, distributed over 10 states: Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia (2025)
Space agency/agencies
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA; founded 1958) (2025)
Space program overview
possesses a vast and intricate space program, ranking among the leading space powers globally; manufactures, launches, and operates space launch vehicles (SLVs)/rockets along with a complete array of spacecraft, including interplanetary probes, crewed vehicles, reusable rockets, satellites, space stations, and space planes/shuttles; operates an astronaut program with a dedicated corps of astronauts; is engaged in the research and development of a wide variety of space-related technologies, such as advanced telecommunications and optics, navigational aids, propulsion, and robotics; has dispatched orbital or lander probes to the Sun and every planet in the solar system, in addition to asteroids and regions beyond the solar system; participates in numerous international missions and projects with countries including Canada, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the European Space Agency (ESA); as of January 2026, 60 nations had endorsed the US-led Artemis Accords aimed at improving the governance of civil exploration and utilization of outer space; the US commercial space sector ranks among the largest in the world, actively participating across the spectrum of US government space initiatives; US commercial enterprises account for the majority of NASA and US military space launches (2026)
Key space-program milestones
1958-1963 - Project Mercury conducted the first manned space flights
1961-1963 - Project Gemini focused on longer-duration manned flights to prepare for Moon landings
1963-1971 - Project Apollo achieved the Moon landings (notably the first manned landing on the Moon in 1969)
1964 - successfully launched the first Mars probe (Mariner)
1965-1979 - operated the Skylab space station
1977 - commenced the launch of Voyager probes to Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond the solar system
1980s-2011 - managed the Space Shuttle program (the world’s first reusable space orbiters)
1990 - launched the Hubble Space Telescope
1993 - began involvement in the International Space Station project
2003 - sent surface rover vehicles (Spirit and Opportunity) to Mars
2011 - launched the orbital probe (Juno) towards Jupiter
2016 - initiated the OSIRIS-REx mission to collect an asteroid sample (landed on asteroid Bennu in 2020 and returned with sample in 2023)
2017 - launched the Artemis lunar landing initiative
2019 - started the Gateway lunar orbital station project
2021 - successfully deployed the James Webb Space Telescope (with ESA providing the launch vehicle and location); the surface rover vehicle (Perseverance) along with the robotic helicopter (Ingenuity) landed on Mars
2024 - successfully delivered a commercial lander to the Moon and launched the Europa Clipper probe to investigate Jupiter's moon Europa