The poll is complete and the most popular robotic spacecraft in history have been selected. Thanks to the efforts by The Planetary Society. The top three missions selected here now represent the themes of our series of screen-printed posters celebrating the history of robotic space exploration. To support this effort please see our campaign page at Kickstarter.
The Voyager Program As we expected the Voyager Program came into the top spot with 507 votes (18.5%). The poster for this design is already complete and available for viewing on the campaign page.
Cassini / Huygens Cassini takes poster #2 with 432 votes (15.7%), effectively eclipsing it’s sister probe Galileo. This design is expected to be completed on or before October 23rd.
Mars Science Lab (aka Curiosity) The newest member of the robotic Martian community of surface rovers, Curiosity arrived in 2012 and has stolen the thunder of the previous Mars Exploration Rovers with 340 votes (12.4%). This design is expected to be completed on or before October 31st.
As for the rest of the list, here is how things all panned out:
- The Mars Exploration Rovers 189 (6.9%)
- Sputnik (Earth) 169 (6.2%)
- The Viking Program (Mars) 146 (5.3%)
- New Horizons (Pluto) 136 (5.0%)
- Rosetta (comet) 123 (4.5%)
- Galileo (Jupiter) 121 (4.4%)
- Venera (Venus) 67 (2.4%)
- Pioneers 10 & 11 (Jupiter & Saturn) 66 (2.4%)
- The Mariner Program (Mercury, Venus & Mars) 47 (1.7%)
- Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter 40 (1.5%)
- Hayabusa (asteroid) 39 (1.4%)
- Mars Express39 (1.4%)
- Deep Impact / Epoxi (comet) 36 (1.3%)
- Stardust (comet) 26 (0.9%)
- Messenger (Mercury) 25 (0.9%)
- Maven (Mars) 22 (0.8%)
- Dawn (Vesta & Ceres) 22 (0.8%)
Should we reach our stretch goals, this would also make poster #4’s theme the Opportunity & Spirit rovers and poster #5’s surprising but historically honorable theme going to Sputnik.