Tuesday, October 27, 2026

1973-11-03 · 53 years ago

Mariner 10 — launch

Date in UTC

Mariner 10 was an American robotic space probe launched by NASA on 3 November 1973, to fly by the planets Mercury and Venus. It was the first spacecraft to visit Mercury and the first to perform a flyby of multiple planets. Mariner 10 was launched approximately two years after Mariner 9 and was the last spacecraft in the Mariner program. (Mariner 11 and Mariner 12 were allocated to the Voyager program and redesignated Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.) The mission objectives were to measure Mercury's environment, atmosphere, surface, and body characteristics and to make similar investigations of Venus. Secondary objectives were to perform experiments in the interplanetary medium and to obtain experience with a dual-planet gravity assist mission.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_10. Related NASA reference: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mariner-10/. 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 10
Organization
NASA Lewis Research Center
Vehicle
Atlas SLV-3D Centaur
Location
Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida
Country
US
Outcome
Successful

Context and qualifications

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

Sources and attribution

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