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Space in 2004: The year in dates
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    • PARIS (AFP) Dec 12, 2004
     Following is a calendar of the key events in space exploration in 2004:


    - Jan 2: NASA probe Stardust flew by Comet Wild 2, capturing particles in its aerogel collector for return on Earth in January 2006 and sending back pictures of an eerie surface of spires, pits and craters

    - Jan 3: NASA rover Spirit rover landed on Mars

    - Jan 14: President George W. Bush unveiled plans for a US return to the Moon as early as 2015. Lunar base would be a springboard for manned missions to Mars and "across our Solar System"

    - Jan 23: European probe Mars Express, in its first pictures of the Red Planet, showed evidence of ice at the planetary poles

    - Jan 24: Second NASA rover, Opportunity, landed on Mars

    - March 2: Europe launched comet-chasing probe Rosetta on a billion-dollar, 10-year mission

    - June 30: The US-European space probe Cassini-Huygens arrived at Saturn after a seven-year trip

    - Aug 25: European astronomers announced they have found a "super-Earth" orbiting a star some 50 light years away, a finding that could significantly boost the hunt for worlds beyond our Solar System

    - Sept 8: US probe Genesis, with a cargo of solar dust, crashed after a parachute malfunction. But some of the precious payload is safe.

    - Oct 4: SpaceShipOne bagged a 10-million-dollar prize as the world's first private spaceship

    - Nov 16: Europe's first mission to the Moon, the unmanned exploratory probe SMART-1, arrived at its destination

    - Nov 20: Launch of United States' Swift satellite to track explosions of gamma rays

    - Dec 25 (scheduled): Huygens probe to separate from Cassini orbiter ahead of death plunge towards Saturn moon Titan




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