This is a completely updated and revised version of a monograph published in 2002 by the NASA History Office under the original title Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes, 1958-2000. This new edition not only adds all events in robotic deep space exploration after 2000 and up to the end of 2016, but it also completely corrects and updates all accounts of missions from 1958 to 2000--Provided by publisher.

'Bursts with gloriously geeky detail.' The Telegraph Have you ever made someone you love a mix-tape? Forty years ago, a group of scientists, artists and writers gathered in a house in Ithaca, New York to work on the most important compilation ever conceived. It wasn't from one person to another, it was from Earth to the Cosmos. In 1977 NASA sent Voyager 1 and 2 on a Grand Tour of the outer planets. During the design phase of the Voyager mission, it was realised that this pair of plucky probes would eventually leave our solar system to drift forever in the unimaginable void of interstellar space. With this gloomy-sounding outcome in mind, NASA decided to do something optimistic. They commissioned astronomer Carl Sagan to create a message to be fixed to the side of Voyager 1 and 2 – a plaque, a calling card, a handshake to any passing alien that might one day chance upon them. The result was the Voyager Golden Record, a genre-hopping multi-media metal LP. A 90-minute playlist of music from across the globe, a sound essay of life on Earth, spoken greetings in multiple languages and more than 100 photographs and diagrams, all painstakingly chosen by Sagan and his team to create an aliens' guide to Earthlings. The record included music by J.S. Bach and Chuck Berry, a message of peace from US president Jimmy Carter, facts, figures and dimensions, all encased in a golden box. The Vinyl Frontier tells the story of NASA's interstellar mix-tape, from first phone call to final launch, when Voyager 1 and 2 left our planet bearing their hopeful message from the Summer of '77 to a distant future.

The story of the men and women who drove the Voyager spacecraft mission— told by a scientist who was there from the beginning. --Publisher

In 1977, two extraodinary spacecraft called Voyager were launched to the stars. Affixed to each Voyager craft was a gold-coated copped phonograph record as a message to possible extra-terrestrial civilizations that might encounter the spacecraft in some distant space and time. Each record contained 118 photographs of our planet; almost 90 minutes of the world's greatest music; an evolutionary audio essay on "The Sounds of Earth"; and greetings in almost sixty human languages (and one whale language). This book is an account, written by those chiefly responsible for the contents of the Voyager Record, of why they did it, how they selected the repertoire, and precisely what the record contains.

From Voyager to Stardust, this complete guide to NASA's deep space probes features a DVD containing thousands of pictures and videos captured by the journeying probes. 250 photos, 100 in full color.

Planetary science is a truly multidisciplinary subject. The book deals with the atmospheres, surfaces and interiors of the planets and moons, and with the interplanetary environment of plasma and fields, as well as with asteroids and meteorites. Processes such as accretion, differentiation, thermal evolution, and impact cratering form another category of entries. Remote sensing techniques employed in investigation and exploration, such as magnetometry, photometry, and spectroscopy are described in separate articles. In addition, the Encyclopedia chronicles the history of planetary science, including biographies of pioneering scientists, and detailed descriptions of all major lunar and planetary missions and programs. The Encyclopedia of Planetary Sciences is superbly illustrated throughout with over 450 line drawings, 180 black and white photographs, and 63 color illustrations. It will be a key reference source for planetary scientists, astronomers, and workers in related disciplines such as geophysics, geology, and the atmospheric sciences.