Studying other planets and the sun

The Mariner series of spacecraft were designed to conduct surveys of other planets in the solar system. The Mariner 1 was scheduled to study Venus, but it was destroyed on launch due to launch vehicle failure, though Mariner 2 was successful at both launching and studying Venus.

The Mariner 3 was scheduled to survey Mars, but was unsuccessful. Mariner 4 was successful, coming to a distance of 6,118 miles from Mars, and returning 22 pictures.

The Mariner 5 came within 2,429 miles of Venus and discovered a 72 to 87 percent carbon dioxide atmosphere without oxygen. Mariner 6 through 9 also studied and collected pictures of Mars. The Mariner 10 surveyed Venus and Mercury, and returned 8,000 photographs.

The Helios program’s objective was to study the sun. The Helios A came 28 million miles from the Sun, and the Helios B came 27 million miles.

The Viking’s program’s objective was to place two spacecraft into orbit around the planet Mars, and then release a vehicle to land on the surface from each.

On July 14, 1976, Viking 1 was maneuvered into synchronous orbit over Chryse Planitia. The VL-1 lander was separated and began its descent four days later. The Viking 2 was placed over Utopia Planitia on August 27, 1976. The Viking-Lander 2 conducted biology experiments showing no signs of life on Mars.

The Voyager program was developed to conduct a scientific investigation of Jupiter and Saturn. It was then discovered that Saturn’s rings and most of its moons were shown to be largely water ice, except for Phoebe, which is mostly rock, and Titan, which was about half rock.

Weather Predictions

The TIROS (Television Infrared Observation Satellite) spacecraft were built in effect to develop a 24-hour television infrared weather-monitoring system. TIROS 1 was launched in 1960 and TIROS 10 was launched in 1965, with 8 TIROS spacecraft launched between the two.

The ITOS was a series of weather satellites that evolved from the TIROS program. The ITOS program began in 1970.

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