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: 10256 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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Jul 14 2008, 08:20 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 571 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Silesia Member No.: 299 |
Today is the 43 anniversary of the first Mars flyby.
I would like propose you a very interesting article written by Doug Rickard. Memoirs of a space engineer. Doug Rickard was a very unusual man, with very unusual biography. Doug worked on the British Atomic Weapons Tests at Maralinga in South Australia in the late 1950s, and was victim of incident known as "Maralinga Cobalt 60 incident". I emailed with him a few times maybe eight years ago. -------------------- Free software for planetary science (including Cassini Image Viewer).
http://members.tripod.com/petermasek/marinerall.html |
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Jul 14 2008, 05:13 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 532 Joined: 19-February 05 Member No.: 173 |
Today is the 43 anniversary of the first Mars flyby. I would like propose you a very interesting article written by Doug Rickard. Memoirs of a space engineer. Doug Rickard was a very unusual man, with very unusual biography. Doug worked on the British Atomic Weapons Tests at Maralinga in South Australia in the late 1950s, and was victim of incident known as "Maralinga Cobalt 60 incident". I emailed with him a few times maybe eight years ago. And on precisely the 50th anniversary of the Mariner IV flyby, New Horizons will reach Pluto. Our team has already begun compiling a list of Mariner IV alums to invite to see the first reconnaissance of the ninth planet at the edge of the classical planetary system. Alan Stern |
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