In flight, each spacecraft would have to perform more than 90,000 measurements per day, reporting back to the Earth on 52 engineering readings, the changes in interplanetary magnetic fields, the density and distribution of charged particles and cosmic dust, and the intensity and velocity of low-energy protons streaming out from the Sun.
At its closest approach to Venus, the spacecraft instruments would be required to scan the planet during a brief 35-minute encounter, to gather data that would enable Earth scientists to determine the temperature and structure of the atmosphere and the surface, and to process and transmit that data back to the Earth.
THE ORGANIZATION
Flying Mariner to Venus was a team effort made possible through the combined resources of several United States governmental organizations and their contractors, science, and industry. The success of the Mariner Project resulted primarily from the over-all direction and management of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the production and launch capabilities of the vehicle builders and the Air Force. Several organizations bore the major responsibility: NASA Headquarters, JPL, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and Launch Operations Center, Astronautics Division of General Dynamics, and Lockheed Missiles and Space Company.
NASA: FOR SCIENCE
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was an outgrowth of the participation of the United States in the International Geophysical Year program and of the nation’s space effort, revitalized following Russia’s successful orbiting of Sputnik I in 1957.
Final NACA meeting, August 21, 1958.
Model of X-1 research plane.