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Projects: Messages from EarthPlanetary Society Members' Names Flying in SpaceSince 1996, the full list of active Planetary Society members has flown to space aboard thirteen different spacecraft. Planetary Society members' names have traveled, or are traveling to, Earth orbit; the Moon; Mars; Saturn; asteroid Itokawa; comet Wild 2; comet Tempel 1; asteroids Ceres and Vesta; Pluto; and beyond, out of the solar system entirely. Many of these opportunities were made possible by The Planetary Society, which sometimes designed and built the hardware used to carry the names into space. The Planetary Society works to fly its members' names at every opportunity, and, when possible, to gather additional names from the world's public for flight. Below is a list of all missions that have carried or are carrying Planetary Society member names, with links to where certificates may be downloaded for some of them.* Glory - Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - Kaguya (SELENE) - Phoenix - Dawn - New Horizons - Deep Impact - Cosmos 1 - Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity - Hayabusa (MUSES-C) - Stardust - Cassini-Huygens - Mars Pathfinder - Mars '96 GloryFuture NASA Earth orbiter (launch expected 2009) Participants' names will be recorded on a microchip that will be incorporated into the spacecraft, which will orbit Earth to study aerosol particles and solar insolation. If your name was entered into the Glory names collection automatically as a Planetary Society member, you will not be able to download a participant certificate yet, but that capability will be added shortly. Stay tuned to this page to find out how to get your certificate once that function is available. Lunar Reconnaissance OrbiterFuture NASA lunar orbiter (launch expected 2009) Names are recorded on a microchip that will be integrated onto the spacecraft. At present, it is not possible to download a participant certificate from the Internet if your name was not entered via the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter website. Kaguya (SELENE)JAXA lunar orbiter (launched September 14, 2007, arrived October 3, 2007) The Planetary Society joined with The Planetary Society of Japan and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in the "Wish Upon the Moon" campaign, sending thousands of names and messages to the Moon. Names were micro-written on a thin film of metal foil and mounted on the exterior of the spacecraft. Download your certificate here. *
PhoenixNASA Mars lander (launched August 4, 2007, landed May 25, 2008) The Planetary Society provided, at no cost to NASA, a silica glass mini-DVD containing "Visions of Mars," the first Martian library, and 250,000 names. The mini-DVD was affixed to the lander deck, and is visible in many of the images returned to Earth from the northern polar plains of Mars. Download your certificate here. *
DawnNASA orbiter to asteroids Vesta and Ceres (launched September 27, 2007, en route to Vesta rendezvous October 2011) A microchip containing the names of 360,000 people who signed up on the Internet, plus all the names of Planetary Society members, are recorded on a microchip affixed to a side brace of the spacecraft. At present, it is not possible to download a participant certificate from the Internet.
New HorizonsNASA flyby mission to Pluto and the Kuiper belt (launched January 19, 2006, en route to Pluto flyby July 2015, and encounters with perhaps two Kuiper Belt objects between 2016 and 2020) A compact disc containing 434,738 names is mounted on the exteriod of the New Horizons spacecraft. Download your certificate here. *
Cosmos 1Failed Planetary Society mission to test solar sail technology in Earth
orbit (launched June 21, 2005) A compact disc containing 76,922 names of current members of The Planetary Society and The Planetary Society of Japan was affixed to the body of the spacecraft. The disc also contained letters, stories, and texts relating to the rich history of solar sailing in science and science fiction. At present, it is not possible to download a participant certificate from the Internet.
Deep ImpactNASA mission to fly by and impact comet Tempel 1 (launched January 12, 2005, impact July 4, 2005) A disc containing 650,000 names was mounted on the impactor portion of the Deep Impact spacecraft. When the impactor slammed into Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, it and all the names it carried vaporized. At present, the Deep Impact names database is not searchable, though perhaps this facility will be returned to the Deep Impact website in the future. Mars Exploration RoversTwo NASA Mars rovers: The Planetary Society provided, at no cost to NASA, two identical silica glass DVDs containing more than four million names apiece. These were only the second time that privately contributed hardware flew on a U.S. planetary mission (the first being The Planetary Society's Mars Microphone aboard Mars Polar Lander). The DVDs, part of the Red Rover Goes to Mars project, were mounted to the Spirit and Opportunity landers. Each rover acquired several images of the individual DVDs before embarking on their historic journeys across Mars, leaving the landers and the DVDs behind. Download your certificate here. *
Hayabusa (MUSES-C)JAXA orbiter and sample return from asteroid Itokawa (launched May 9, 2003, arrived September 12, 2005, target marker released November 10, 2005) To prepare for its touchdown on asteroid Itokawa, Hayabusa released two shiny target markers that would serve as guides for optical navigation. Wrapped inside one of the markers was a thin film of aluminum foil etched with 877,490 names, collected by The Planetary Society and JAXA. At present, it is not possible to download a participant certificate from the Internet.
StardustNASA sample return mission from the coma of comet Wild 2 (launched February
7, 1999, flyby January 2, 2004, sample return January 15, 2006, now
cruising toward Tempel 1 flyby February 2011) Stardust flew within 236 kilometers of the nucleus of comet Wild 2. The spacecraft and the sample return capsule each carry two microlithographs from separate name collection efforts. The first contains 136,000 names collected in October and November of 1997, including the names of Planetary Society members and Stardust team members, and the second contains over a million names collected from May to August, 1998. Certificates are not available, but the full list of names included on each microlithograph is posted on the Stardust website. Make sure to look on "Microchip #1" for your name. (They are referred to on the Stardust site as "microchips," but the names are actually physically etched, microscopically, on a piece of metal.) The set of chips on the sample return capsule came back to Earth when the capsule did in 2006.
Cassini-HuygensNASA / ESA / ASI Saturn orbiter & Titan probe (launched October 15, 1997, orbit insertion July 1, 2004) A mini-DVD containing 616,400 handwritten signatures was attached to the Cassini orbiter on August 22, 1997. We do not know if all Society member names are included on this disk, but volunteers from the Planetary Society were responsible for the enormous task of sorting, counting, and scanning all of the postcards containing handwritten signatures for inclusion on the DVD.
Mars PathfinderNASA Mars lander (launched December 4, 1996, landed July 4, 1997) A spare copy of the MAPEX (microelectronics and photonics experiment) chip that was originally developed for Mars '96 was included on Mars Pathfinder. The MAPEX chip included the names of 100,000 Planetary Society members. Mars '96Failed Russian Mars orbiter (launch failure on November 16, 1996) The Planetary Society provided a compact disc containing Visions of Mars, a collection of Mars literature, art, and personal messages from Mars visionaries, to the Mars '96 mission. Names of 100,000 Planetary Society members were included in a different component of the orbiter called MAPEX (the microelectronics and photonics experiement). MAPEX was mounted on the surface of the compact disc before it was sent to Russia. Unfortunately, Mars '96 suffered a launch failure. MAPEX later made it to Mars aboard the Mars Pathfinder lander in 1997, and Visions of Mars finally arrived aboard the Phoenix lander in 2008. * For most of the certificate lookup websites, it is critical that your name be entered precisely as it appears on the mailing label of your copy of The Planetary Report, including any initials, suffixes, and punctuation. If your membership was current as of the date we provided our list to a mission but you cannot find your name in an online search tool, don't despair. Send us an email and we can usually search the database for your name and tell you exactly how it is written on the spacecraft. (For privacy reasons, we cannot post the member lists online for you to search on your own.) If you do not remember when you first became a member, send an email to the membership department. |
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