Mariner spacecraft to Venus Options

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

The Mariner 5 spacecraft was the fifth in a series of spacecraft used for planetary exploration in the flyby mode. Mariner 5 was a refurbished backup spacecraft for the Mariner 4 mission and was converted from a Mars mission to a Venus mission. The spacecraft was fully attitude stabilized, using the sun and Canopus as references.
I’m wondering if NASA retained the 4 solar panels for the Mariner 5 mission to Venus, as other Spacecraft to Venus (Mariner 2 - 1962 and Mariner 10 - 1973) only used two solar panels as the mission took place close to the Sun

[tasp]

IIRC, the existing solar panels were flipped over to face the opposite direction. Do not recall anything about any being removed.

[robspace54]

IIRC, the existing solar panels were flipped over to face the opposite direction. Do not recall anything about any being removed.

To retain the existing attitude jet design, which were on the ends of the solar arrays, the Mariner 3/4 panel structure was kept, but the solar cells were shorter, as shown in these two pictures of Mariner 5 (Mariner E). They were put on the sunward side, which was the anti-sun side on Mariner 4. The antennas were put on the bottom of the original spacecraft bus, with a thermal shield on top.

Rob

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