1964-11-28 · 62 years ago

Mariner 4 — launch

Date in UTC

Mariner 4 (Mariner C-3, together with Mariner 3 known as Mariner-Mars 1964) was the fourth in a series of spacecraft intended for planetary exploration in a flyby mode. It was designed to conduct closeup scientific observations of Mars and to transmit these observations to Earth. Launched on November 28, 1964, Mariner 4 performed the first successful flyby of the planet Mars, returning the first close-up pictures of the Martian surface. It captured the first images of another planet ever returned from deep space; their depiction of a cratered, dead planet largely changed the scientific community's view of life on Mars. Other mission objectives were to perform field and particle measurements in interplanetary space in the vicinity of Mars and to provide experience in and knowledge of the engineering capabilities for interplanetary flights of long duration.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_4. Related NASA reference: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mariner-4/. Description adapted from Wikipedia contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).

Category
Launches and Flight Tests
Type
Orbital launch
Subjects
Space transportation
Mission
Mariner 4
Organization
NASA Lewis Research Center
Participants
US Air Force Space Systems Division
Vehicle
Atlas Agena D
Location
Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida
Country
US
Outcome
Successful

Context and qualifications

Launch code: DS. Source references: TR-1022; RAE-PH.

Sources and attribution

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