Mariner Mission to Venus

If intelligent life had existed on Venus on the afternoon of the Earth’s December 14, 1962, and if it could have seen through the clouds, it might have observed Mariner II appro...

A preliminary design was adopted in late September, when the scientific experiments to be carried on board were also selected. By October 2, a schedule had been established that...

In the summer of 1961, the United States was pushing hard to strengthen its position in the exploration of space and the near planets. The National Aeronautics and Space Adminis...

In the 11 brief months which JPL had to produce the Mariner spacecraft system, there was no possibility of designing an entirely new spacecraft. JPL’s solution to the problem wa...

After a year of concentrated effort, in which the resources of NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and American science and industry had been marshalled, Mariner II had probed...

—Interplanetary space between the Earth and Venus, at least as it was during the four months of Mariner’s mission, had a cosmic dust density some ten-thousand times lower than t...

The task of receiving, relaying, processing, and interpreting the data coming in simultaneously on a twenty-four-hour basis for several months from the several scientific and ma...

Thirty-six million miles separated the Earth from Venus at encounter. Communicating with Mariner II and tracking it out to this distance, and beyond, represented a tremendous ex...

On this immense plateau in an area near Goldstone Dry Lake, about 45 miles north of the town of Barstow, a group of 85-foot antennas forms the nucleus of the United States’ worl...

The motive power of Mariner itself was limited to a trajectory correction rocket engine and an ability, by means of gas jets, to keep its two critical faces pointing at the Sun...

Researching the material, gathering and comparing data, preparation of review drafts and attending to the hundreds of details required to produce a document on the results of su...