2000 – 2010: A Successful Decade in Astronomy?

The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft makes an excellent landing on the asteroid Eros's surface. During its hour-long descent, NEAR sends back unprecedented images of the asteroid's surface. Since February 14, 2000, NEAR had been orbiting Eros. It never had the intention of landing on the asteroid. As the spacecraft is nearing the end of its mission and running out of fuel, the idea to land at the last minute is to collect additional data.

In 2011, NASA announced that the Messenger spacecraft had successfully entered Mercury's orbit after traveling for 6.5 years. Messenger became the first artificial satellite to orbit Mercury after completing this difficult maneuver. It gathered information about the planet's geology, composition, and thin atmosphere from this perch.
The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa brings the first samples from an asteroid back to Earth after a seven-year mission. In May 2003, the spacecraft is launched to reach the asteroid 25143 Itokawa. On the asteroid, Hayabusa lands and takes samples in the form of tiny grains. On June 13, 2010, the spacecraft successfully returns to Earth and the samples land in the southern Outback of Australia.

The first private company to successfully launch a spacecraft into orbit and safely return it to Earth is SpaceX. This historic mission, which was officially designated COTS Demo Flight 1, had only been carried out by governments up until this point. On December 8, a Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the unmanned Dragon capsule. The Dragon spacecraft successfully splashes down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico after completing two orbits around the earth.