Mariner Mission to Venus

by Jet Propulsion Laboratory

CONTENTS

[FOREWORD] [ACKNOWLEDGMENTS] [CHAPTER 1 VENUS] [The Double Star of the Ancient World] [The Consensus prior to Mariner II] [The Cytherean Riddle: Living World or Incinerated Planet] [CHAPTER 2 PREPARING FOR SPACE] [A Problem in Celestial Dynamics] [The Organization] [NASA: For Science] [JPL: JATO to Mariner] [General Dynamics: The Atlas] [Lockheed: Agena B] [CHAPTER 3 THE SPACECRAFT] [The Spaceframe] [The Power System] [CC&S: The Brain and the Stopwatch] [Telecommunications: Relaying the Data] [Attitude Control: Balancing in Space] [Propulsion System] [Temperature Control] [The Scientific Instruments] [CHAPTER 4 THE LAUNCH VEHICLE] [The Atlas Booster: Power of Six 707’s] [The Agena B: Start and Restart] [CHAPTER 5 FLIGHT INTO SPACE] [Mariner I: An Abortive Launch] [Mariner II: A Roll before Parking] [The Parking Orbit] [Orientation and Midcourse Maneuver] [The Long Cruise] [Encounter and Beyond] [The Record of Mariner] [CHAPTER 6 THE TRACKING NETWORK] [Deep Space Instrumentation Facility] [The Goldstone Complex] [The Woomera Station] [The Johannesburg Station] [Mobile Tracking Station] [CHAPTER 7 THIRTEEN MILLION WORDS] [Communication Control] [The Operations Center] [Central Computing Facility] [CHAPTER 8 THE SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS] [Data Conditioning System] [Cosmic Dust Detector] [Solar Plasma Experiment] [High-energy Radiation Experiment] [The Magnetometer] [Microwave Radiometer] [Infrared Radiometer] [Mariner’s Scientific Objectives] [CHAPTER 9 THE LEGACY OF MARINER] [Space without Dust?] [The Ubiquitous Solar Wind] [High-energy Particles: Fatal Dosage?] [A Magnetic Field?] [The Surface: How Hot?] [Cloud Temperatures: The Infrared Readings] [The Radar Profile: Measurements from Earth] [CHAPTER 10 THE NEW LOOK OF VENUS] [APPENDIX] [INDEX]

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Researching the material, gathering and comparing data, preparation of review drafts and attending to the hundreds of details required to produce a document on the results of such a program as the Mariner mission to Venus is a tremendous task. Special acknowledgment is made to Mr. Harold J. Wheelock who, on an extremely short time scale, carried the major portion of this work to completion.

Although the prime sources for the information were the Planetary Program office and the Technical Divisions of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, other organizations were extremely helpful in providing necessary data, notably the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, the Astronautics Division of the General Dynamics Corporation, and, of course, the many elements of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

JPL technical information staff members who assisted Mr. Wheelock in production of the manuscript and its illustrations were Mr. James H. Wilson, Mr. Arthur D. Beeman and Mr. Albert E. Tyler. JPL is also grateful to Mr. Chester H. Johnson for his help and suggestions in preparing the final manuscript.

CHAPTER 1
VENUS

Halfway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, the California country climbs southward out of the sunken basin of Death Valley onto the 3500-foot-high floor of the Mojave desert.

On this immense plateau in an area near Goldstone Dry Lake, about 45 miles north of the town of Barstow, a group of 85-foot antennas forms the nucleus of the United States’ world-wide, deep-space tracking network.

Here, on the morning of December 14, 1962, several men were gathered in the control building beneath one of the antennas, listening intently to the static coming from a loudspeaker. They were surrounded by the exotic equipment of the space age. Through the window loomed the gleaming metal framework of an antenna.