Following NASA’s September, 1961 decision to go ahead with the Mariner R Project, JPL’s Director, Dr. William H. Pickering, called on his seasoned team of scientists and engineers. Under Robert J. Parks, Planetary Program Director, Jack N. James was appointed as Project Manager for Mariner R, assisted by W. A. Collier. Dan Schneiderman was appointed Spacecraft System Manager, and Dr. Eberhardt Rechtin headed the space tracking program, with supervision of the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility (DSIF) operations under Dr. Nicholas Renzetti. The Mariner space flight operations were directed by Marshall S. Johnson.
A PROBLEM IN CELESTIAL DYNAMICS
In order to send Mariner close enough to Venus for its instruments to gather significant data, scientists had to solve aiming and guidance problems of unprecedented magnitude and complexity.
The 447-pound spacecraft had to be catapulted from a launching platform moving around the Sun at 66,600 miles per hour, and aimed so precisely that it would intercept a planet moving 78,300 miles per hour (or 11,700 miles per hour faster than the Earth) at a point in space and time some 180.2 million miles away and 109 days later, with only one chance to correct the trajectory by a planned midcourse maneuver.
And the interception had to be so accurate that the spacecraft would pass Venus within 8,000 to 40,000 miles. The chances of impacting the planet could not exceed 1 in 1,000 because Mariner was not sterilized and might contaminate Venus. Also, much more data could be gathered on a near-miss flight path than on impact. Furthermore, at encounter (in the target area) the spacecraft had to be so positioned that it could communicate with Earth, see the Sun with its solar panels, and scan Venus at the proper angles.
Along the way, Mariner had to be able to orient itself so that its solar panels were facing or “locked onto” the Sun in order to generate its own power; acquire and maintain antenna orientation to the Earth; correct its attitude constantly to hold Earth and Sun lock; receive, store, and execute commands to alter its course for a closer approach to Venus; and communicate its findings to Earth with only 3 watts of radiated power and over distances never before spanned.
Mariner II was launched in a direction opposite to the orbital travel of the Earth. The Sun’s gravity then pulled it in toward the planet Venus.
Early in the program it had been decided that two spacecraft would be launched toward Venus. Only 56 days were available for both launchings and the planet would not be close enough again for 19 months—the period between inferior conjunctions or the planet’s closest approach to the Earth. On any one of these days, a maximum of 2 hours could be used for getting the vehicles off the launch pad. In addition, the Mariners would have to leave the Earth in a direction opposite to that of the Earth’s direction of orbital revolution around the Sun. This flight path was necessary so the spacecraft could then fall in toward the Sun and intercept Venus, catching and passing the Earth along the way, about 65 days and 11.5 million miles out.
This feat of celestial navigation had to be performed while passing through the hostile environment of interplanetary space, where the probe might be subjected to solar winds (charged particles) travelling at velocities up to 500 miles per second; intense bombardment from cosmic radiation, charged protons, and alpha particles moving perhaps 1.5 million miles per hour; radiated heat that might raise the spacecraft temperatures to unknown values; and the unknown dangers from cosmic dust, meteorites, and other miscellaneous space debris.