Paolo Ulivi and David Harland provide in Robotic Exploration of the Solar System a detailed history of unmanned missions of exploration of our Solar System. As ... » 

Paolo Ulivi and David Harland provide in Robotic Exploration of the Solar System a detailed history of unmanned missions of exploration of our Solar System. As in their previous book Lunar Exploration, the subject is treated wherever possible from an engineering and scientific standpoint. Technical descriptions of the spacecraft, of their mission designs and of instrumentations are provided. Scientific results are discussed in considerable depth, together with details of mission management.The book is comprehensive, covering missions and results from the 1950s until the present day, and some of the latest missions and their results appear in a popular science book for the first time. The authors also cover many unflown missions, providing an indication of the ideas that proved to be unfulfilled at the time but which may still be proven and useful in the future.Just like Lunar Exploration, this book uses sources only recently made available on the Soviet space program, in addition to some obscure and rarely used references on the European space program. Unflown European projects of the 1960s and 1970s, a subject never before treated, will also be covered. «