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Mariner 3

Organization	JPL - NASA
Mission type	Fly-by
Flyby of	Mars
Launch date	5 November 1964 at 19:22:05 UTC
Launch vehicle	Atlas-Agena D
Mass	260.8 kg

Mariner 3 and 4 were identical spacecraft of the Mariner program designed to carry out the first flybys of Mars and obtain photographs of the planet's surface. Mariner 3 was launched on November 5, 1964 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 13, but the shroud encasing the spacecraft atop its rocket failed to open properly, and Mariner 3 did not get to Mars. Unable to collect the Sun's energy for power from its solar panels, the probe soon died when its batteries ran out and is now in solar orbit. Three weeks later, on November 28, 1964, Mariner 4 was launched successfully on a 7½-month voyage to the red planet.

Instruments:

1. Television Camera
2. Magnetometer
3. Plasma Probe
4. Cosmic Ray Telescope
5. Trapped Radiation Detector
6. Cosmic Ray Ionization
7. Cosmic dust

See also

• Exploration of Mars
• Space exploration
• Unmanned space missions

External links

• Mariner 3 Mission Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration
• Space Flight Operations Plan Mariner Mars '64 (PDF)

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Published in July 2009.

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