2002 – Mars Odyssey Orbiter turns on its science instruments; a camera system, a gamma ray spectrometer and a radiation environment monitor. During subsequent testing the radiation monitor was found to have a computer failure but the Earth bound team solved the problem.
2000 – NEAR achieves orbit around asteroid 433 Eros and becomes the first spacecraft to successfully lock into orbit around an asteroid.
1990 – The cameras of Voyager 1 pointed back toward the sun and took a series of pictures of the sun and the planets,
making the first ever “ portrait” of our solar system as seen from the outside.