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Mariners 6 and 7 SpacecraftLaunch: February 24, 1969 (Mariner 6); March 27, 1969 (Mariner 7)
About 5 years after the launch of Mariners 3 and 4, in between which was marked by the launch of Zond 2 by USSR which reached Mars but failed to send back data, Mariners 6 and 7 were next in line for NASA's program. Mariners 6 and 7 were designed for the same data gathering on Mars, but improvements in technology would enable them to gather more accurate results than Mariners 3 and 4 could. Also, Mariners 6 and 7 were entirely devoted to the study of Mars. Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 were launched on February 24, 1969, and March 27, 1969, and managed flybys of Mars on July 30 and August 4 respectively. Many more photos were returned this time and in total, 143 far encounter images and 58 near encounter images were transmitted back to NASA. This was due primarily to advances in technology which allowed information to be transferred as many as 2000 times faster than Mariner 4 could. There were close calls though. Contact was lost with Mariner 7 on July 30 and it was only after a 7-hour silence that contact was restored. Instrument responsible for reporting the direction of the television cameras, however, were damaged and could no longer function as planned. Mariner 7 cameras could not be pointed properly and, with the flyby nearing, manual calibration by ground crews managed to save the day, enabling pictures to be taken. This showed the importance of the ability to reprogram the computer on a spacecraft and served a valuable lesson to NASA. Much more data about conditions on Mars were revealed as the two spacecrafts flyby, analysing the Martian atmosphere and surface with remote sensors. All in all, the mission was a complete success. |
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