1. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

For 6 decades, NASA has led peaceful space exploration, making discoveries about Earth, other planets, solar systems, galaxies, and our universe. It’s an independent organisation that isn’t a part of any executive department but reports directly to the U.S President.

Since its inception, most space exploration efforts (in the US) have been led by NASA, including the Skylab space station, a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft named Space Shuttle, and the most popular human spaceflight program, Apollo Moon landing missions.

2. China National Space Administration (CNSA)

China National Space Administration is responsible for planning and implementing all space missions on the national level, and signing government agreements related to space research. Unlike other space organisations worldwide, CNSA is not involved with ISS. In fact, it has its own small space station. Also, it carries out regular launches by itself using a family of expendable launch systems named Long March.

In 2014, CNSA successfully made the first soft landing on the moon using its first robotic lunar lander and rover, named Chang’e 3. Other than this, in 2007, China successfully carried out an anti-satellite test on its own machines.

3. European Space Agency (ESA)

The European Space Agency is an international organization with 22 member states. By harmonizing the intellectual and financial assets of all members, the agency can manage activities and programs far beyond the scope of any single European nation.

ESA is one of the major contributors to the ISS. Since its inception, it has been actively involved in unmanned exploration missions to the Moon and other planets, telecommunication, developing launch vehicles, and Earth observation.

The agency has its own launch system, Ariane, which has gone through multiple generations of developments over the last four decades.

4. Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos)

Roscosmos is a coordinating hub for all kinds of space activities in Russia. It conducts variety of civilian activities, including astronaut projects and monitoring Earth, and coordinates military launches with the Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation.

Roscosmos was formed in a completely different era, right after the termination of the Soviet Union Program. Now the agency provides launch services to other nations and performs various spacecraft missions of its own, such as GLONASS navigation satellites, telecommunications, and military satellites. Also, it is putting a small portion of resources into the ISS.

Roscosmos is currently working on the ExoMars mission — to find evidence of life on Mars — in collaboration with ESA. They are also developing a fully robotic lunar base (Luna-Glob), which is planned to be launched in the early 2020s.

5. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

Indian Space Research Organisation harnesses space technology for national development while pursuing planetary exploration and space science research. They have carried out several major operations on both the national and international levels.

The agency maintains a series of multipurpose geostationary satellites (INSAT) and remote sensing satellites (IRS) that fulfill the nation’s growing demand for telecommunication and Earth observation respectively.

According towww.rankred.com. Source of photos: internet