Chapter I: Foreword

For many centuries scientific information about the planets and the vast void that separates them has been collected by astronomers observing from the surface of the Earth. Now, with the flight of Mariner II, we suddenly have in our hands some 90 million bits of experimental data measured in the region between Earth and the planet Venus. Thus, man for the first time has succeeded in sending his instruments far into the depths of space, and indeed, in placing them near another planet. A whole new area of experimental astronomy has been opened up.

This book is a brief record of the Mariner Project to date and is designed to explain in general terms the preliminary conclusions. Actually, it will be months or years before all of the data from Mariner II have been completely analyzed. The most important data were the measurements made in the vicinity of the planet Venus, but it should also be noted that many weeks of interplanetary environmental measurements have given us new insight into some of the basic physical phenomena of the solar system. The trajectory data have provided new, more accurate measurements of the solar system. The engineering measurements of the performance of the spacecraft will be of inestimable value in the design of future spacecraft. Thus, the Mariner II spacecraft to Venus not only looks at Venus but gives space scientists and engineers information helpful in a wide variety of space ventures.

A project such as Mariner II is first a vast engineering task. Many thousands of man-hours are required to design the complex automatic equipment which must operate perfectly in the harsh environment of space. Every detail of the system must be studied and analyzed. The operations required to carry out the mission must be understood and performed with precision. A successful mission requires every member of the entire project team to do his task perfectly. Whether it be the error of a designer, mechanic, mathematician, technician, operator, or test engineer—a single mistake, or a faulty piece of workmanship, may cause the failure of the mission. Space projects abound with examples of the old saying, “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost ...,” and so on, until the kingdom is lost. Only when every member of the project team is conscious of his responsibility will space projects consistently succeed.

The Mariner II Project started with the Lunar and Planetary Projects Office of the Office of Space Sciences at NASA in Washington. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, personnel provided the main body of the team effort. They were heavily supported by industrial contractors building many of the subassemblies of the spacecraft, by scientists planning and designing the scientific experiments, and by the Air Force which supplied the launching rockets. Several thousand men and women had some direct part in the Mariner Project. It would be impossible to list all of those who made some special contribution, but each and every member of the project performed his job accurately, on time, and to the highest standards.

Mariner II is only a prelude to NASA’s program of unmanned missions to the planets. Missions to Mars as well as Venus will be carried out. Spacecraft will not only fly by the planets as did Mariner II, but capsules will be landed, and spacecraft will be put into orbit about the planets. The next mission in the Mariner series will be a flyby of the planet Mars in 1965.

By the end of the decade, where will we be exploring, what will new Mariners have found? Will there be life on Mars, or on any other planet of the solar system? What causes the red spot on Jupiter? What is at the heart of a comet? These and many other questions await answers obtained by our future spacecraft. Mariner II is just a beginning.

W. H. Pickering
_Director_
Jet Propulsion Laboratory_
California Institute of Technology_
April, 1963_

CONTENTS

_FOREWORD_
_ACKNOWLEDGMENTS_

CHAPTER 1 VENUS
_The Double Star of the Ancient World_
_The Consensus prior to Mariner II_
_The Cytherean Riddle: Living World or Incinerated Planet_

CHAPTER 2 PREPARING FOR SPACE
_A Problem in Celestial Dynamics_
_The Organization_
_NASA: For Science_
_JPL: JATO to Mariner_
_General Dynamics: The Atlas_
_Lockheed: Agena B_

CHAPTER 3 THE SPACECRAFT
_The Spaceframe_
_The Power System_
_CC&S: The Brain and the Stopwatch_
_Telecommunications: Relaying the Data_
_Attitude Control: Balancing in Space_
_Propulsion System_
_Temperature Control_
_The Scientific Instruments_

CHAPTER 4 THE LAUNCH VEHICLE
_The Atlas Booster: Power of Six 707’s_
_The Agena B: Start and Restart_

CHAPTER 5 FLIGHT INTO SPACE
_Mariner I: An Abortive Launch_
_Mariner II: A Roll before Parking_
_The Parking Orbit_
_Orientation and Midcourse Maneuver_
_The Long Cruise_
_Encounter and Beyond_
_The Record of Mariner_

CHAPTER 6 THE TRACKING NETWORK
_Deep Space Instrumentation Facility_
_The Goldstone Complex_
_The Woomera Station_
_The Johannesburg Station_
_Mobile Tracking Station_

CHAPTER 7 THIRTEEN MILLION WORDS
_Communication Control_
_The Operations Center_
_Central Computing Facility_

CHAPTER 8 THE SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS
_Data Conditioning System_
_Cosmic Dust Detector_
_Solar Plasma Experiment_
_High-energy Radiation Experiment_
_The Magnetometer_
_Microwave Radiometer_
_Infrared Radiometer_
_Mariner’s Scientific Objectives_

CHAPTER 9 THE LEGACY OF MARINER
_Space without Dust?_
_The Ubiquitous Solar Wind_
_High-energy Particles: Fatal Dosage?_
_A Magnetic Field?_
_The Surface: How Hot?_
_Cloud Temperatures: The Infrared Readings_
_The Radar Profile: Measurements from Earth_