Orbiter

This redirect is about a general type of spacecraft. For other uses, see Orbiter (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with orbital vehicle, Orbiter Vehicle, or Orbiting Vehicle.

An orbiter is a space probe that orbits a planet or other astronomical object.

Examples

Asteroids

• NEAR Shoemaker (orbited 433 Eros, eventually landed but was not designed to do so)
• Hayabusa (studied 25143 Itokawa, technically not an orbiter, but rather followed the asteroid in its orbit around the Sun)
• Dawn (orbited 4 Vesta, now orbiting Ceres)

Earth

• Space Shuttle orbiter
• Buran-class shuttle
• Soyuz
• IXV
• Shenzhou
• LandSat

Jupiter

• Galileo
• Juno

Mars

Main article: List of Mars orbiters

• Mariner 9
• Mars 2
• Mars 3
• Mars 5
• Viking 1
• Viking 2
• Phobos 2
• Mars Global Surveyor
• 2001 Mars Odyssey
• Mars Express
• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
• Mangalyaan

Mercury

• MESSENGER

Moon

• Grail spacecraft (Ebb&Flow)
• Luna 10 - first artificial satellite of the Moon
• Explorer 33
• Lunar Orbiter 1
• Luna 11
• Luna 12
• Lunar Orbiter 2
• Lunar Orbiter 3
• Lunar Orbiter 4
• Explorer 35
• Lunar Orbiter 5
• Luna 14
• Luna 19
• Explorer 49
• Luna 22
• Hiten
• Clementine
• Lunar Prospector
• Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
• SMART-1
• SELENE
• Chang'e 1
• Chang'e 2
• Chandrayaan I

Saturn

• Cassini-Huygens Mission

Sun

• Pioneer 5
• Pioneer 6
• Pioneer 7
• Pioneer 8
• Pioneer 9
• Helios probes
• ISEE-3
• Ulysses
• WIND
• SOHO
• ACE
• Genesis
• STEREO probes

Venus

• Venera 9
• Venera 10
• Pioneer Venus Orbiter
• Venera 15
• Venera 16
• Magellan
• Venus Express

See also

• Satellite

External links

• Media related to Orbiters (spacecraft) at Wikimedia Commons