NASA accepted the proposal, and JPL began an 11-month crash program to develop "Mariner R" (so named because it was a Ranger derivative). A hybrid of Mariner A and JPL's Block 1 Ranger lunar explorer, already under development, was suggested. JPL proposed to NASA that the mission might be accomplished with a lighter spacecraft using the less powerful but operational Atlas-Agena. By August 1961, it had become clear that the Centaur would not be ready in time. įor the summer 1962 launch opportunity, NASA contracted Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in July 1960 : 172 to develop "Mariner A", a 1,250 lb (570 kg) spacecraft to be launched using the yet undeveloped Atlas-Centaur. The Soviet Union launched Venera 1 on February 12, 1961, and on May 19–20 became the first probe to fly by Venus however, it had stopped transmitting on February 26. (The Atlas Able probe concept was repurposed as the unsuccessful Pioneer Atlas Moon probes.) No American missions were sent during the early 1961 opportunity. The Thor-Able probe was repurposed as the deep space explorer Pioneer 5, which was launched March 11, 1960, and designed to maintain communications with Earth up to a distance of 20,000,000 mi (32,000,000 km) as it traveled toward the orbit of Venus. STL was unable to complete the probes before June, and the launch window was missed. A plan drafted January 1959 involved two spacecraft evolved from the first Pioneer probes, one to be launched via Thor-Able rocket, the other via the yet-untested Atlas-Able. Air Force contractor Space Technology Laboratory (STL) intended to take advantage of it. The second opportunity, around June 1959, lay just within the edge of technological feasibility, and U.S. The first such opportunity of the Space Race occurred in late 1957, before either superpower had the technology to take advantage of it. These opportunities mark the best time to launch exploratory spacecraft, requiring the least fuel to make the trip. : 172 Every 19 months, Venus and the Earth reach relative positions in their orbits around the Sun such that a minimum of fuel is required to travel from one planet to the other via a Hohmann Transfer Orbit. As the closest planet to Earth, Venus presented an appealing interplanetary spaceflight target. With the Moon achieved, the superpowers turned their eyes to the planets. In early 1959, the Soviet Luna 1 was the first probe to fly by the Moon, followed by Luna 2, the first artificial object to impact the Moon. The Pioneer program of satellites consisted of three unsuccessful lunar attempts in 1958. Earth's orbit having been reached, focus turned to being the first to the Moon. The Americans followed suit with Explorer 1 on February 1, 1958, by which point the Soviets had already launched the first orbiting animal, Laika in Sputnik 2. The Soviets launched the Sputnik 1, the first Earth orbiting satellite, on October 4, 1957. With the advent of the Cold War, the two then- superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, both initiated ambitious space programs with the intent of demonstrating military, technological, and political dominance. Mariner II trajectory projected on the ecliptic plane. The errors were traced to a mistake in a specification of the hand-written guidance equations which were then subsequently codified in the computer program. Shortly after liftoff, errors in communication between the rocket and its ground-based guidance systems caused the rocket to veer off course, and it had to be destroyed by range safety. Mariner 1 was launched by an Atlas-Agena rocket from Cape Canaveral's Pad 12 on July 22, 1962. Mariner 1 carried a suite of experiments to determine the temperature of Venus as well to measure magnetic fields and charged particles near the planet and in interplanetary space. Mariner 1 (and its sibling spacecraft, Mariner 2), were then adapted from the lighter Ranger lunar spacecraft. Developed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and originally planned to be a purpose-built probe launched summer 1962, Mariner 1's design was changed when the Centaur proved unavailable at that early date. Mariner 1, built to conduct the first American planetary flyby of Venus, was the first spacecraft of NASA's interplanetary Mariner program.
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