Italian Space Agency

The Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn on June 30, 2004, after a nearly seven-year journey from Earth.

Built jointly by NASA, ESA and the Italian Space Agency, Cassini was the most sophisticated robotic explorer ever sent to the outer solar system.

It carried 12 scientific instruments designed to study Saturn, its rings and its moons in extraordinary detail.

Its companion probe, Huygens, descended to the surface of Titan in January 2005 and returned the first images from the surface of a moon in the outer solar system.

The twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers launched in June and July of 2003.

That summer also saw the launch of a joint mission by the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, further internationalizing Martian exploration in the new century.

The European mission was called Mars Express, a name that might put one more in mind of a commuter train than a cutting-edge mission into space.

Regardless, it successfully placed a spacecraft in orbit around the red planet, where it's been studying Mars ever since.