Abstract
The history of exploring the Solar System by spacecraft is short, spanning less than 42 years at the end of the 20th Century. Prior to January 1, 2001, there had been 182 launches. Of these, 89 were successful or partly successful, and three were in transit to their ultimate destinations. The exploration of the planets was dominated in the 20th Century by competition between the USSR and USA. Only five of the total of 182 missions were developed by other parties. It was not until 1985 that Europe and Japan launched their own deep space missions.
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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
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Huntress, W.T., Marov, M.Y. (2011). The Soviet lunar and planetary exploration legacy. In: Soviet Robots in the Solar System. Springer Praxis Books(), vol 1. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7898-1_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7898-1_21
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