Mariner Mars 1964, Mariners 3 and 4 to Mars: imaging plans? |
Mariner Mars 1964, Mariners 3 and 4 to Mars: imaging plans? |
Apr 28 2005, 05:05 PM
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10229 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
I am currently working on a book about lunar exploration, but looking ahead to the next one, which will cover Mars. One question to which I think I have an answer - but I'd like to see what my fellow Mars enthusiasts think - is this:
Mariner 3 failed to leave Earth. But if it had flown successfully, what area on Mars would it have photographed? My understanding is that there was no specific plan. The MM64 press kit, for instance, says nothing about image coverage for either Mariner 3 or Mariner 4. I believe that navigation to planetary distances was still so uncertain that the flight team could not predict at launch the sub-spacecraft point at closest approach - uncertainties included the exact time of the flyby, the distance and the point at which the spacecraft would pass through the target plane. These things would be known closer to the flyby but they weren't precisely predictable at launch, so Mariner 3 never got to the stage of having an imaging plan. Am I right? Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PDF: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Oct 22 2007, 03:57 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 568 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Silesia Member No.: 299 |
Little bit of history.
Mariner IV - voyage through Earth's magnetosphere. For the first 16 2/3 hours of flight, the Mariner IV spacecraft was programmed to roll at a rate of about 1 revolution every 30 min. Since the magnetic field of the Earth was known, it was possible to correct the magnetometer data for any bias caused by the small remnant field of the spacecraft itself. The roll calibration insured that later data taken from the instrument in the very small field of interplanetary space could be assigned absolute values. Source : Mariner 4 Master Data Records Tape : K-0141 5400 frames extracted Transmision rate - 33 1/3 bps Time period: 28 november 15:20 - 29 november 10:10, year 1964 Averaging - 12,6 sec per pixel (4 measurements from 1 frame) Z - axis top X - axis middle Y - axis bottom -------------------- Free software for planetary science (including Cassini Image Viewer).
http://members.tripod.com/petermasek/marinerall.html |
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