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: 10227 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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Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Nov 29 2005, 08:19 AM
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Guests |
While we're on the subject of lost opportunities: I heard in spring 1967 that NASA was seriously considering launching a sixth Lunar Orbiter made out of the program's leftover spare parts (though it was thought unlikely even then), and remember thinking how nice it would be if they'd fly it with a copy of the gamma-ray spectrometer from the failed 1962 Rangers. In 1977 I learned, to my astonishment, that they had planned to do just that. (Otherwise it would have been similar to Orbiter 5, but would have photographed the Moon's far side in as good detail as Orbiter 4 had done for the near side.)
Well, they ended up leaning against flying this (it would have flown in Nov. 1967) even if Orbiter 5 had failed, and its success totally kiboshed Orbiter 6. I find myself wondering, though, just how much of Lunar Prospector's data might have been gotten three decades earlier if they had flown this -- or put the GRS on Orbiter 5. (I doubt the GRS could have detected the hydrogen at the poles, but I don't know it for sure.) |
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