README.md

metadata

license: cc-by-4.0
pretty_name: GCAT Deep Space Objects and Planetary Landings
language:
  - en
description: >-
  Interplanetary spacecraft and planetary/lunar landings from Jonathan
  McDowell's General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (GCAT). 1,675 records
  across two tables.
task_categories:
  - tabular-classification
tags:
  - space
  - deep-space
  - interplanetary
  - planetary-landings
  - lunar-landings
  - gcat
  - solar-system
  - spacecraft
  - open-data
  - tabular-data
  - parquet
configs:
  - config_name: deep_space_objects
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: data/deep_space_objects.parquet
    default: true
  - config_name: planetary_landings
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: data/planetary_landings.parquet
size_categories:
  - 1K<n<10K

GCAT Deep Space Objects and Planetary Landings

Part of the Solar System Datasets collection on Hugging Face.

Deep space spacecraft and planetary/lunar landings from GCAT (General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects), maintained by Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Currently 1,206 deep space objects and 469 planetary landings (1,675 records total).

Dataset description

This dataset captures humanity's exploration beyond Earth orbit in two complementary tables. The deep space catalog lists every spacecraft, rocket stage, and component that has traveled beyond cislunar space or entered a heliocentric orbit, from the pioneering Luna and Pioneer missions of 1959 to modern interplanetary probes. It includes mission metadata, physical specifications (mass, dimensions, shape), orbital parameters, and current status for each object.

The planetary landings catalog records every intentional and unintentional contact with another world -- soft landings, hard impacts, controlled crashes, and flyby probe deployments. It covers landings on 15 different worlds: Luna, Mars, Venus, Ryugu, Titan, Itokawa, Phobos, Jupiter, and more. The data spans the full international history of planetary exploration, including Soviet Luna and Venera missions, NASA's Surveyor and Apollo landings, ESA's Huygens descent to Titan, Japan's Hayabusa asteroid sample returns, China's Chang'e lunar program, and India's Chandrayaan missions.

Together these tables enable analysis of interplanetary mission trends, success rates by nation and decade, the geographic distribution of lunar landing sites, and the evolution of deep space spacecraft design over six decades.

Configs

deep_space_objects -- 1,206 objects

Every known spacecraft and component that has traveled beyond Earth orbit.

Column	Type	Description
jcat	string	GCAT deep space catalog ID (e.g. D00001)
satcat	string	NORAD/Satcat ID (NNA if not assigned)
launch_tag	string	GCAT launch identifier
piece	string	Launch piece designation
type	string	Object type code (P=payload, R=rocket body, C=component)
name	string	Object name
pl_name	string	Payload name
ldate	string	Launch date
parent	string	Parent object JCAT ID
sdate	string	Separation date from parent
primary	string	Primary gravitational body
ddate	string	Deep space date
status	string	Current status code
dest	string	Destination (Luna, HCO=heliocentric, etc.)
owner	string	Owner organization
state	string	Country/state code
manufacturer	string	Manufacturer code
bus	string	Spacecraft bus type
motor	string	Propulsion motor
mass	float	Mass in kg
mass_flag	string	Mass qualifier flag
dry_mass	float	Dry mass in kg
dry_flag	string	Dry mass qualifier flag
tot_mass	float	Total mass in kg
tot_flag	string	Total mass qualifier flag
length	float	Length in meters
l_flag	string	Length qualifier flag
diameter	float	Diameter in meters
d_flag	string	Diameter qualifier flag
span	float	Span in meters
span_flag	string	Span qualifier flag
shape	string	Physical shape description
odate	string	Orbit date
perigee	float	Perigee in km
pf	string	Perigee qualifier flag
apogee	float	Apogee in km
af	string	Apogee qualifier flag
inc	float	Inclination in degrees
if_flag	string	Inclination qualifier flag
op_orbit	string	Operational orbit type
oqual	string	Orbit quality flag
alt_names	string	Alternative names/designations

planetary_landings -- 469 landings

Every lunar and planetary landing or impact, including controlled and uncontrolled surface contact.

Column	Type	Description
jcat	string	GCAT deep space catalog ID
piece	string	Launch piece designation
name	string	Object name
owner	string	Owner organization
state	string	Country/state code
world	string	Target world (Luna, Mars, Venus, Titan, etc.)
lon	float	Landing longitude (degrees)
lat	float	Landing latitude (degrees)
ltype	string	Landing type (L=landing, I=impact, LA=landing attempt, etc.)
status	string	Outcome status (L=landed, I=impact, etc.)
launch_date	string	Launch date
land_date	string	Landing/impact date
off_date	string	End-of-mission date
dur	float	Surface duration in days
lsite	string	Landing site name
comment	string	Mission notes

Quick stats

• 1,206 deep space objects from 21 countries/entities
• 25 distinct destinations
• 469 planetary landings on 15 worlds
• 57 successful landings, 16 impacts
• Landings by world: Luna (257), Mars (98), Venus (65), Ryugu (14), Titan (8), Itokawa (8)
• International coverage: US, Soviet Union, China, Japan, ESA, India, and more

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

deep = load_dataset("juliensimon/gcat-deep-space", "deep_space_objects", split="train")
landings = load_dataset("juliensimon/gcat-deep-space", "planetary_landings", split="train")

ddf = deep.to_pandas()

# Spacecraft by destination
print(ddf["dest"].value_counts().head(10))

# Payloads only (exclude rocket bodies and components)
payloads = ddf[ddf["type"].str.startswith("P", na=False)]
print(f"{len(payloads)} payload objects")

# Planetary landings by world
ldf = landings.to_pandas()
print(ldf["world"].value_counts())

# Successful lunar landings with coordinates
lunar = ldf[(ldf["world"] == "Luna") & (ldf["status"] == "L")]
print(f"{len(lunar)} successful lunar landings")
print(lunar[["name", "state", "land_date", "lon", "lat", "dur"]].head(10))

# Mars landings
mars = ldf[ldf["world"] == "Mars"]
print(f"{len(mars)} Mars landings/impacts")

Data source

GCAT (General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects) by Jonathan McDowell, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. GCAT is the most comprehensive public catalog of space objects, widely used in the spaceflight research community.

Update schedule

Static dataset -- rebuilt manually when GCAT is updated (approximately monthly).

Related datasets

• space-missions -- Space missions from Wikidata
• spacecraft -- Spacecraft catalog from Wikidata
• gcat-satellite-catalog -- GCAT orbital satellite catalog
• deep-space-probes -- Deep space probe trajectories

Pipeline

Source code: juliensimon/space-datasets

Support

If you find this dataset useful, please give it a ❤️ on the dataset page and share feedback in the Community tab! Also consider giving a ⭐️ to the space-datasets repo.

Citation

@dataset{gcat_deep_space,
  author = {Simon, Julien},
  title = {GCAT Deep Space Objects and Planetary Landings},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/gcat-deep-space},
  note = {Based on GCAT by Jonathan McDowell, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0