He was part of five successful orbiter missions that provided significant new data about the Moon's surface, as well as a wealth of photographic detail that for years remained the definitive source of lunar surface information.

In 2008 NASA selected MAVEN, an orbiter mission to be launched in 2013 to study the atmosphere of Mars.

His career spanned from the earliest orbiter missions to the Moon to marathon voyages to Mars, Venus, Mercury and the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.

The orbiter mission was rescheduled for launch in 2005, and NASA announced its final name, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, on October 26, 2000.

The Indian Space Research Organisation is preparing for Mangalyaan, an orbiter mission to Mars to be launched in November 2013.

The orbiter primary mission ended at the beginning of solar conjunction on October 5, 1976.

The British lander project had its origins in 1997 when the European Space Agency announced an orbiter mission called Mars Express, Europe's first effort to explore the planet.

Luna 22 was a lunar orbiter mission.

The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five unmanned lunar orbiter missions launched by the United States from 1966 through 1967.

Category III: Flyby and orbiter missions to locations with the potential to host life and for which there is a possibility of contamination by Earth life; e.g., Mars, Europa, Titan or Enceladus.