Explore Sun in the Solar System →
Destination · Star
Sun
Explore Sun and the missions that include it in their destination lists. A target in a mission plan does not mean the spacecraft has arrived.
Ephemeris committed
Body record
What the catalog records about Sun
- Body type
- Star
- Mean radius
- 700,000 km
- Mean distance from the Sun
- 0 km
- Position in the explorer
- Computed from a committed ephemeris
Fields this body’s record does not carry are left out entirely rather than filled in with a placeholder or a zero.
Derived figures
Missions to Sun
- Committed missions
- 19
- First launch
- Latest launch
- Concluded missions
- 9
- Recorded a success
- 6
- Success rate
- 67%
Active missions are excluded from the success rate: a live mission has no outcome yet, so counting it would report a rate the records do not support. 10 of the 19 records are still active, leaving 9 concluded. A partial success is a distinct recorded outcome, so it is not counted in the numerator, but it stays in the denominator.
| Decade | Missions launched |
|---|---|
| 1960s | |
| 1970s | |
| 1980s | |
| 1990s | |
| 2000s | |
| 2010s | |
| 2020s |
Who went
Agencies
A joint mission is counted under every agency its record lists, so these figures need not add up to 19.
What they did
Mission types
- Heliophysics
- 19
- Orbiter
- 2
- Flyby
- 1
- Technology demonstrator
- 1
A mission can carry several types, so these figures need not add up either. Types no mission here carries are omitted.
How they ended
Outcomes
- Success
- 6
- Partial success
- 3
- Failure
- 0
- Active
- 10
Which ones
Every committed mission to Sun
Every record counted above, in launch order — earliest first, with missions that share a launch date ordered by name.
Keep going
These records in the directory
The directory's Sun destination filter selects exactly the records counted above.
View all 19 Sun missionsThe explorer draws a flight path only where a trajectory dataset is committed. Mission inspection shows one spacecraft at a time, so this link opens the earliest available mission.
Draw 1 of the 4 missions with a committed trajectory