Mariner program

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Launch of Mariner 1 in 1962 Atlas Agena with Mariner 1.jpg
Launch of Mariner 1 in 1962

The Mariner program was conducted by the American space agency NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the inner Solar System - visiting the planets Venus, Mars and Mercury for the first time, and returning to Venus and Mars for additional close observations. [1]

Contents

The program included a number of interplanetary firsts, including the first planetary flyby, the planetary orbiter, and the first gravity assist maneuver. [2] Of the 10 vehicles in the Mariner series, seven were successful, forming the starting point for many subsequent NASA/JPL space probe programs. The planned Mariner Jupiter-Saturn vehicles were adapted into the Voyager program, [3] while the Viking program orbiters were enlarged versions of the Mariner 9 spacecraft. Later Mariner-based spacecraft include Galileo and Magellan, while the second-generation Mariner Mark II series evolved into the Cassini–Huygens probe.

The total cost of the Mariner program was approximately $554 million. [4]

Early concept

The Mariner program began in 1960 with a series of JPL mission studies for small-scale, frequent exploration of the nearest planets. They were to take advantage of the soon-to-be-available Atlas launch vehicles as well as the developing capability of JPL’s Deep Space Instrumentation Facility (later named the Deep Space Network), a global network of ground stations designed to communicate with spacecraft in deep space. [1] The name of the Mariner program was decided in "May 1960-at the suggestion of Edgar M. Cortright" to have the "planetary mission probes ... patterned after nautical terms, to convey 'the impression of travel to great distances and remote lands.'" That "decision was the basis for naming Mariner, Ranger, Surveyor, and Viking probes." [5]

Each spacecraft was to carry solar panels that would be pointed toward the Sun and a dish antenna that would be pointed at Earth. Each would also carry a host of scientific instruments. Some of the instruments, such as cameras, would need to be pointed at the target body it was studying. Other instruments were non-directional and studied phenomena such as magnetic fields and charged particles. JPL engineers proposed to make the Mariners "three-axis-stabilized," meaning that unlike other space probes they would not spin. [1]

Each of the Mariner projects was designed to have two spacecraft launched on separate rockets, in case of difficulties with the nearly untried launch vehicles. Mariner 1, Mariner 3, and Mariner 8 were in fact lost during launch, but their backups were successful. No Mariners were lost in later flight to their destination planets or before completing their scientific missions. [1]

Basic layout

Dr. William H. Pickering, (center) JPL Director, presents a Mariner 2 spacecraft model to President John F. Kennedy in 1963. NASA Administrator James Webb is standing directly behind the Mariner model. Kennedy Receives Mariner 2 Model.jpg
Dr. William H. Pickering, (center) JPL Director, presents a Mariner 2 spacecraft model to President John F. Kennedy in 1963. NASA Administrator James Webb is standing directly behind the Mariner model.

All Mariner spacecraft were based on a hexagonal or octagonal bus, which housed all of the electronics, and to which all components were attached, such as antennae, cameras, propulsion, and power sources. [2] [6] Mariner 2 was based on the Ranger Lunar probe. All of the Mariners launched after Mariner 2 had four solar panels for power, except for Mariner 10, which had two. Additionally, all except Mariner 1, Mariner 2 and Mariner 5 had TV cameras.

The first five Mariners were launched on Atlas-Agena rockets, while the last five used the Atlas-Centaur. All Mariner-based probes after Mariner 10 used the Titan IIIE, Titan IV uncrewed rockets or the Space Shuttle with a solid-fueled Inertial Upper Stage and multiple planetary flybys.

Mariners

The Mariners were all relatively small robotic explorers, each launched on an Atlas rocket with either an Agena or Centaur upper-stage booster, and weighing less than half a ton (without onboard rocket propellant). Each of their missions was completed within a few months to a year or two, though one of them outlived its original mission and continued to send useful scientific data for three years. [1]

SpacecraftMass [1] Carrier rocketLaunch date [7] Last contactDestinationMissionOutcomeRemarks
Mariner 1
(P-37)
22 July 196222 July 1962
(destroyed)
Venus FlybyLaunch failureFailed to orbit; destroyed by range safety following guidance failure [8]
Mariner 2
(P-38)
203 kg
(446 lb)
27 August 19623 January 1963 7:00 UT [9] VenusFlybySuccessfulFirst flyby of Venus with data returned, [note 1] on 14 December 1962. A copy of Mariner 1.
Mariner 3 Atlas LV-3 Agena-D 5 November 19645 November 1964 Mars FlybyLaunch failurePayload fairing failed to separate
Mariner 4 261 kg
(575 lb)
Atlas LV-3 Agena-D 28 November 196421 December 1967MarsFlybySuccessfulFirst flyby of Mars, on 15 July 1965. A copy of Mariner 3.
Mariner 5 245 kg
(540 lb)
14 June 19674 December 1967
(Briefly regained 14 October 1968 [10] [11] )
VenusFlybySuccessfulFlyby on 19 October 1967, closest approach at 17:34:56 UTC. [12] Designed to measure magnetic fields and various emissions of the Venusian atmosphere.
Mariner 6 413 kg
(908 lb)
Atlas SLV-3C Centaur-D 25 February 1969December 23, 1970

(decommissioned)

MarsFlybySuccessfulDual mission
Mariner 7 413 kg
(908 lb)
Atlas SLV-3C Centaur-D 27 March 1969December 28, 1970

(decommissioned)

MarsFlybySuccessful
Mariner 8 Atlas SLV-3C Centaur-D 9 May 19719 May 1971
(destroyed)
MarsOrbiterLaunch failureOne of two probes designed to orbit Mars and return images and data. Lost in a vehicle malfunction.
Mariner 9 998 kg
(2,200 lb)
Atlas SLV-3C Centaur-D 30 May 197127 October 1972 [13] MarsOrbiterSuccessful [13] First orbiter of Mars. Entered orbit on 14 November 1971, deactivated 516 days later. A copy of Mariner 8.
Mariner 10 433 kg
(952 lb)
3 November 197324 March 1975 [14] Venus, Mercury FlybySuccessfulFirst flyby of Mercury and the last Mariner probe launched [note 2]

Mariners 1 and 2

Mariner 2 Mariner 2 Engineering Model.jpg
Mariner 2
Diagram of Mariner 1 and 2 with Atlas-Agena launch vehicle Diagram of Mariner 1 and 2 with Atlas-Agena launch vehicle.jpg
Diagram of Mariner 1 and 2 with Atlas-Agena launch vehicle

Mariner 1 (P-37) and Mariner 2 (P-38) were two deep-space probes making up NASA's Mariner-R project. The primary goal of the project was to develop and launch two spacecraft sequentially to the near vicinity of Venus, receive communications from the spacecraft and to perform radiometric temperature measurements of the planet. A secondary objective was to make interplanetary magnetic field and/or particle measurements on the way to, and in the vicinity of, Venus. [16] [17] Mariner 1 (designated Mariner R-1) was launched on July 22, 1962, but was destroyed approximately 5 minutes after liftoff by the Air Force Range Safety Officer when its malfunctioning Atlas-Agena rocket went off course. Mariner 2 (designated Mariner R-2) was launched on August 27, 1962, sending it on a 3½-month flight to Venus. The mission was a success, and Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to have flown by another planet.

On the way it measured for the first time the solar wind, a constant stream of charged particles flowing outward from the Sun. It also measured interplanetary dust, which turned out to be more scarce than predicted. In addition, Mariner 2 detected high-energy charged particles coming from the Sun, including several brief solar flares, as well as cosmic rays from outside the Solar System. As it flew by Venus on December 14, 1962, Mariner 2 scanned the planet with infrared and microwave radiometers, revealing that Venus has cool clouds and an extremely hot surface (because the bright, opaque clouds hide the planet’s surface, Mariner 2 was not outfitted with a camera). [1]

Status:

Mariners 3 and 4

Mariner 3/4 Mariner 3 and 4.jpg
Mariner 3/4

Sisterships Mariner 3 and Mariner 4 were Mars flyby missions. [18]

Mariner 3 was launched on November 5, 1964, but the shroud encasing the spacecraft atop its rocket failed to open properly and Mariner 3 did not get to Mars. [1]

Mariner 4, launched on November 28, 1964, was the first successful flyby of the planet Mars and gave the first glimpse of Mars at close range. [18] The spacecraft flew past Mars on July 14, 1965, collecting the first close-up photographs of another planet. The pictures, played back from a small tape recorder over a long period, showed lunar-type impact craters (just beginning to be photographed at close range from the Moon), some of them touched with frost in the chill Martian evening. The Mariner 4 spacecraft, expected to survive something more than the eight months to Mars encounter, actually lasted about three years in solar orbit, continuing long-term studies of the solar wind environment and making coordinated measurements with Mariner 5, a sister ship launched to Venus in 1967. [1]

Status:

Mariner 5

Mariner 5 Mariner 5.jpg
Mariner 5

The Mariner 5 spacecraft was launched to Venus on June 14, 1967, and arrived in the vicinity of the planet in October 1967. It carried a complement of experiments to probe Venus' atmosphere with radio waves, scan its brightness in ultraviolet light, and sample the solar particles and magnetic field fluctuations above the planet.

Status: Mariner 5 – Defunct and now in a heliocentric orbit.

Mariners 6 and 7

Mariner 6/7 Mariner 6and7.gif
Mariner 6/7

Mariners 6 and 7 were identical teammates in a two-spacecraft mission to Mars. Mariner 6 was launched on February 24, 1969, followed by Mariner 7 on March 21, 1969. They flew over the equator and southern hemisphere of the planet Mars. [20] They analyzed atmosphere and surface with remote sensors as well as recording and relaying hundreds of pictures. By chance, both flew over cratered regions and missed both the giant northern volcanoes and the equatorial grand canyon discovered later. Their approach pictures did, however, show the dark features long seen from Earth, but no canals.

Status: Both Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 are now defunct and are in a heliocentric orbit. [20]

Mariners 8 and 9

Mariner 9 Mariner09.jpg
Mariner 9

Mariner 8 and Mariner 9 were identical sister craft designed to map the Martian surface simultaneously, but Mariner 8 was lost in a launch vehicle failure. Mariner 9 was launched in May 1971 and became the first artificial satellite of Mars. Its launch mass was nearly doubled by the onboard rocket propellant needed to thrust it into orbit around Mars, but otherwise it closely resembled its predecessors. [1] It entered Martian orbit in November 1971 and began photographing the surface and analyzing the atmosphere with its infrared and ultraviolet instruments.

Since 1969, Mariner spacecraft operations such as science sequencing and pointing had been programmable, using simple flight computers with limited memory, and the spacecraft used a digital tape-recorder rather than film to store images and other science data. The spacecraft was thus able to wait until the storm abated, the dust settled and the surface was clearly visible before compiling its global mosaic of high-quality images of the surface of Mars. [1]

It also provided the first closeup pictures of Mars’ two small, irregular moons, Phobos and Deimos. [1]

Status:

Mariner 10

Mariner 10 Mariner 10.jpg
Mariner 10

The Mariner 10 spacecraft launched on November 3, 1973, and was the first to use a gravity assist trajectory, accelerating as it entered the gravitational influence of Venus, then being flung by the planet's gravity onto a slightly different course to reach Mercury. [1] It was also the first spacecraft to encounter two planets at close range, and for 33 years the only spacecraft to photograph Mercury in closeup.

Here a fortuitous gravity assist enabled the spacecraft to return at six-month intervals for close mapping passes over the planet, covering half the globe (Mercury’s slow rotation left the other half always in the dark when Mariner returned). [1]

Status: Mariner 10 – Defunct and now in a heliocentric orbit.

Mariner Jupiter-Saturn

Mariner Jupiter-Saturn was approved in 1972 after the cancellation of the Grand Tour program, which proposed visiting all the outer planets with multiple spacecraft. The Mariner Jupiter-Saturn program proposed two Mariner-derived probes that would perform a scaled back mission involving flybys of only the two gas giants, though designers at JPL built the craft with the intention that further encounters past Saturn would be an option. Trajectories were chosen to allow one probe to visit Jupiter and Saturn first, and perform a flyby of Saturn's moon Titan to gather information about the moon's substantial atmosphere. The other probe would arrive at Jupiter and Saturn later, and its trajectory would enable it to continue on to Uranus and Neptune assuming the first probe accomplished all its objectives, or be redirected to perform a Titan flyby if necessary. The program's name was changed to Voyager just before launch in 1977, and after Voyager 1 successfully completed its Titan encounter, Voyager 2 went on to visit the two ice giants. [3]

See also

Notes

  1. Venera 1 flew by in 1961, but the spacecraft failed en route and returned no data
  2. An eleventh spacecraft, the Mariner 10 flight spare, was constructed but did not fly. NASA gave it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1982, which currently displays it in the Time and Navigation exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum. [15]

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space exploration</span> Exploration of space, planets, and moons

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<i>Voyager 1</i> NASA space probe launched in 1977

Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and the interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. It was launched 16 days after its twin Voyager 2. It communicates through the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth. Real-time distance and velocity data is provided by NASA and JPL. At a distance of 163 AU from Earth as of January 2024, it is the most distant human-made object from Earth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mariner 9</span> Successful 1971 Mars robotic spacecraft

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mariner 2</span> 1962 space probe to Venus

Mariner 2, an American space probe to Venus, was the first robotic space probe to report successfully from a planetary encounter. The first successful spacecraft in the NASA Mariner program, it was a simplified version of the Block I spacecraft of the Ranger program and an exact copy of Mariner 1. The missions of the Mariner 1 and 2 spacecraft are sometimes known as the Mariner R missions. Original plans called for the probes to be launched on the Atlas-Centaur, but serious developmental problems with that vehicle forced a switch to the much smaller Agena B second stage. As such, the design of the Mariner R vehicles was greatly simplified. Far less instrumentation was carried than on the Soviet Venera probes of this period—for example, forgoing a TV camera—as the Atlas-Agena B had only half as much lift capacity as the Soviet 8K78 booster. The Mariner 2 spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral on August 27, 1962, and passed as close as 34,773 kilometers (21,607 mi) to Venus on December 14, 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mariner 6 and 7</span> Robotic spacecraft sent to Mars in 1969

Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 were two uncrewed NASA robotic spacecraft that completed the first dual mission to Mars in 1969 as part of NASA's wider Mariner program. Mariner 6 was launched from Launch Complex 36B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Mariner 7 from Launch Complex 36A. The two craft flew over the equator and south polar regions, analyzing the atmosphere and the surface with remote sensors, and recording and relaying hundreds of pictures. The mission's goals were to study the surface and atmosphere of Mars during close flybys, in order to establish the basis for future investigations, particularly those relevant to the search for extraterrestrial life, and to demonstrate and develop technologies required for future Mars missions. Mariner 6 also had the objective of providing experience and data which would be useful in programming the Mariner 7 encounter five days later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mariner 10</span> 1973 American robotic space probe; flew by Venus and Mercury

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mariner 1</span> 1962 NASA unmanned mission to fly by Venus

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mariner Mark II</span> Planned family of uncrewed NASA spacecraft

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlas-Agena</span> American expendable launch system

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exploration of Mercury</span>

The exploration of Mercury has a minor role in the space interests of the world. It is the least explored inner planet. As of 2015, the Mariner 10 and MESSENGER missions have been the only missions that have made close observations of Mercury. MESSENGER made three flybys before entering orbit around Mercury. A third mission to Mercury, BepiColombo, a joint mission between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the European Space Agency, is to include two probes. MESSENGER and BepiColombo are intended to gather complementary data to help scientists understand many of the mysteries discovered by Mariner 10's flybys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exploration of Uranus</span> Exploration in space

The exploration of Uranus has, to date, been through telescopes and a lone probe by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft, which made its closest approach to Uranus on January 24, 1986. Voyager 2 discovered 10 moons, studied the planet's cold atmosphere, and examined its ring system, discovering two new rings. It also imaged Uranus' five large moons, revealing that their surfaces are covered with impact craters and canyons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exploration of Saturn</span> Overview of the exploration of Saturn

The exploration of Saturn has been solely performed by crewless probes. Three missions were flybys, which formed an extended foundation of knowledge about the system. The Cassini–Huygens spacecraft, launched in 1997, was in orbit from 2004 to 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OCEANUS</span> Proposed space mission to Uranus

OCEANUS is a mission concept conceived in 2016 and presented in 2017 as a potential future contestant as a New Frontiers program mission to the planet Uranus. The concept was developed by the Astronautical engineering students of Purdue University during the 2017 NASA/JPL Planetary Science Summer School. OCEANUS is an orbiter, which would enable a detailed study of the structure of the planet's magnetosphere and interior structure that would not be possible with a flyby mission.

References

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