55 years in the past, on March 27, 1969, an Atlas-Centaur rocket launched from NASA’s Kennedy House Middle in Florida, sending Mariner 7 on its option to research Mars. Mariner 7 was the second Mars probe; Mariner 6 launched Feb. 24, 1969, to analyze Mars’ equator. Mariner 7 made a detailed flyby of Mars simply 5 days after Mariner 6. Scientists had been in a position to instruct it to take extra photos of the south pole, which had piqued their curiosity throughout Mariner 6’s flyby.
The Mariner program launched 10 missions to discover Mercury, Venus, and Mars by means of flybys or orbits. These missions proved that interplanetary exploration was workable with small, low-cost spacecraft, laying the groundwork for all of the deep area exploration missions that adopted.
Picture Credit score: NASA