SPUTNIK - USSR The series of Sputnik missions were the first ever man made objects to enter space. Sputnik 1 was a small, unsophisticated sattelite, yet it triggered an era of rivalry and fierce competition in the area of space exploration between the United States and the USSR. RETURN TO TOP VANGUARD The Vanguard missions were the United States first attempts at placing an object in space. They began by contracting the Navy to launch Vanguard 1. It exploded after reaching a height of less than ten feet. The contract was passed on to Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL). This
spacecraft, called Explorer 1, launched aboard a Juno-Jupiter rocket, was highly successful and relayed information about radiation and micrometeors. Explorer 3, also launched by JPL, was another success in the early days of satellites. It was at this time that JPL joined up with NASA, which, unlike JPL who had such acclaimed scientists as Wernher Von Braun, had lower level scientists. RETURN TO TOP PIONEER After a few years the Russians began to send Luna probes to the moon. Two of the three probes made it, and the last one took pictures of the dark side of the moon. The United States began their own unmanned moon program after this. The government contracted the Air Force to make three probes and the Army to make two. The probes were to carry sophisticated TV equipment and many
other devices that were high on the technological spectrum at that point in time. The first probe to launch just blew up on the pad. The second had a faulty second stage and it plummeted back to earth. The third time the third stage failed and the craft was destroyed. The fourth time was also a failure. The government was getting impatient, and allowed just one more trial. RETURN TO TOP PIONEER 4 This time the craft dubbed Pioneer 4 was (tentatively) called a success, and came within 35,000 miles of the moon. It later was brought into an orbit around the sun where it was eventually destroyed. Unfortunately, little information was returned because of unforeseen radiation problems. The Pioneer program continued on for a while after Pioneer 4.
RETURN TO TOP PIONEER 10 The Pioneer program’s objectives changed with the creation of Pioneer 10. This new probe was to be sent to Jupiter and take pictures while under complete control by NASA. It launched March 2, 1972. It began an encounter with Jupiter on November 3, 1973 and that encounter lasted for about two months. It took many pictures, but they were very fuzzy and not much better resolution than earth telescopes. RETURN TO TOP PIONEER 11 Pioneer 11 left earth April 5, 1973. It came to Saturn on September 1, 1979, and remained near enough to gather information from Saturn for ten days. Much previously unknown data was gathered, and some pictures were taken.
RETURN TO TOP PIONEER 12 AND PIONEER 13 The two spacecraft, Pioneer 12 and Pioneer 13 (or Pioneer Venus 1 and Pioneer Venus 2), made their way to Venus. They were launched on May 20 and August 8, 1978. They encountered Venus in early December of 1978, and gathered a plethora of information, the latter by launching mini probes into the atmosphere. Pioneer Venus 1 orbited the planet and mapped the surface. RANGER NASA wanted to
go to the moon again, and this time use the (so far) unfailing company JPL. The problem was that no one could come up with a rocket powerful enough to get to the moon successfully without going over the budget. JPL invented a much more powerful final stage which would give the spacecraft extra boost at the end, which solved the problem. The program was called Ranger. RETURN TO TOP RANGER 1 Ranger 1 was finished in May of 1960. It cost $132 million, and it was to be sent to impact the moon and gather data beforehand. It took off August 23, 1961, yet it got stuck in orbit around earth because it could only do course corrections while facing the sun, which disoriented it from earth communications. It then ran out of fuel and burned up in the atmosphere.
RETURN TO TOP RANGER 2 AND RANGER 3 Ranger 2 was very unsuccessful, barely making it into orbit around earth, and later was incinerated in the atmosphere after 20 hours. Ranger 3 also encountered a few problems, which forced it to miss the moon. The launch vehicle never shut down, sending Ranger 3 coasting towards the sun. RETURN TO TOP RANGER 4 AND RANGER 5 Ranger 4 appeared to be acting properly at take off, and it did make it to the moon. Once it got there its internal clock malfunctioned, and it crashed into the dark side of the moon. Ranger 5 shared
the same fate as its predecessors when it short circuited and flew towards the sun. After this it was concluded that the Ranger spacecraft had been over designed and the project was canceled. RETURN TO TOP MARINER
Mariner was the next phase in unmanned space exploration instigated by NASA. It had three different models throughout the project. - Mariner A
- Three distinct craft to fly by Venus in 1962, 1964, 1965
- Had sophisticated measuring equipment
- Mariner B
- Included capsule that split into two probes
- When more sophisticated included crawlers that were to land on planet
- Mariner R
- Was cheap leftovers from Ranger missions
- Used in 1962
- Rocket spun out of control at launch because of missing hyphen in programming
NASA was very hopeful with the Ranger probes that were hopefully going to Venus. The Russians had failed thirteen times trying to get a probe to Venus, and this was one category that the United States might be
able to better them in. RETURN TO TOP MARINER R2 Mariner R2 was launched August 27, 1962, and was the second Mariner probe and was the first successful mission of the series. It came within 21,000 miles of Venus and measured magnetic fields, solar plasma, radiation, cosmic dust, and many other things. So far they encountered no surprising data concerning Venus. RETURN TO TOP MARINER 3 Mariner 3 was the first in the series of Mariner-Mars missions. It was launched
November 5, 1964, and when it got into space the fiberglass protective shroud covering the solar panels failed to open and the craft drifted away powerless. RETURN TO TOP MARINER 4 Mariner 4 was launched November 28, 1964, and actually succeeded in its mission. It took seven months and about two weeks to get to Mars. Once there it sent back 21.5 pictures. Each picture took about eleven hours to materialize. Most of the pictures showed many craters on the Martian surface.
RETURN TO TOP MARINER 5 In October of 1967 Mariner 5 was launched. It sped past Venus and returned much important information to earth. RETURN TO TOP MARINER 6 AND MARINER 7 Both Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 did flybys of Mars like Mariner 4.
Neither returned any substantial information, but both were hailed as successes nonetheless. RETURN TO TOP MARINER 8 AND MARINER 9 Mariner 8 was launched, but did not make it far. Its rocket failed and it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean. Mariner 9 following it was a success though. It was launched May 1971, and orbited Mars from November 1971 to October 1972. It went on to orbit Mars, but for the first year it could not take pictures because of a dust storm. When the dust storm had settled it took 73,000 pictures and discovered many mountains and volcanoes. From these pictures a nearly complete map of the Martian surface was made.
RETURN TO TOP MARINER 10 Mariner 10 was sent to Venus on October of 1973, and encountered the planet in February of 1974. It then continued on to encounter
Mercury in March of 1974 at a distance of 430 miles, providing the first ever close-up views of the planet. Again it encountered the planet in September, and it discovered a previously unknown magnetic field. It came within 197 miles of Mercury in March 1975 one more time before its service was complete. VIKING
The Viking program evolved from an idea of sending a Voyager probe to Mars, even before the Voyager program had been instigated. When Nixon was elected as President of the United States, he chose a new chief for NASA. The new chief immediately
began pursuing the Viking missions to Mars. From there came the first ever soft landing on Mars. RETURN TO TOP VIKING 1 Viking 1 launched off August 20, 1975. The Viking 1 orbiter spotted out a landing site for Lander 1 (the landing craft aboard Viking 1). The lander descended to the surface and took a number of pictures. Each picture took 20 minutes to download and process. The most alarming
thing discovered was that the sky was pink, because many assumed it would be blue. It also took some soil samples and performed a few experiments on them. Lander 1 shut down November 1982. RETURN TO TOP VIKING 2 Viking 2 was launched September 9, 1975. Lander 2 touched down farther north than Lander 1. It shut down on April 12 1980. Both of the
orbiters discontinued operations a few months thereafter. The orbiters provided a total of 51,339 pictures, and the landers gave about 4,500 pictures. The total cost for the Viking program was $1 billion. RETURN TO TOP VOYAGER The Voyager missions were designed to gather large amounts of information
regarding the planets of our outer solar system. At this time they had a 1 in 175 year chance when all the planets would be aligned in a certain way which made it easiest for the probes to go on a straight course to intercept all the planets using a minimum amount of fuel. The program was almost terminated because of the upcoming shuttle program. It had the best computer technology ever at that time, but this made the probe extremely heavy, weighing in at 1,808 pounds, significantly heavier
than most probes. The program consisted of two probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. RETURN TO TOP JUPITER ENCOUNTER The number of Voyager 1 is slightly misleading, because it actually left 16 days later than Voyager 2 which left on August 20, 1977, but the numbers were arranged by which craft would encounter the planets first. Voyager 1 encountered Jupiter four months ahead of Voyager 2. At this time, Voyager 2 encountered a multitude of problems which could have been mission threatening, but almost all were corrected and the craft continued onward unscathed. In January of 1979 Voyager
2 began its observatory stage of Jupiter, which lasted for a month. The planet was seen in amazing detail, the likes of which had never been seen before. It also conducted numerous tests and sent the data back to earth. Next came the the far encounter, as it sped closer and closer to the planet. Then came the near encounter, and the demand for the instruments increased enormously. It took many pictures, and sometimes the scientists would just stop what they were doing and stare at the main screen while the pictures were loading because they were so stunning. They discovered the Great Red Spot on Jupiter to be a swirling mass of gas held in place by the planet’s rotation. They found that one of Jupiter’s moons, Io, was extremely volcanic and constantly spewing out its molten contents. The moons were discovered to all be very different, and much data was gathered about them. What followed was the post encounter phase, in which the spacecraft sped away from the planet towards Saturn. In 98 days Voyager 1 had taken 18,000 pictures, and Voyager 2 had taken 12,000.
RETURN TO TOP SATURN ENCOUNTER Voyager 1 had been looking at Saturn since midsummer of 1980. Its closest approach was on November 12. It found two more previously unknown satellites and what appeared to be spokes on the rings, a phenomena that should not happen according to the present laws of physics. Voyager 2 began its Saturn encounter on August 25. It discovered that Mimas, one of Saturn’s moons, had a crater a third the size of the moon. Many other things were discovered, and pictures continued to come in.
RETURN TO TOP URANUS AND NEPTUNE ENCOUNTERS Voyager 2 continued its lonely trek to some of the farthest planets in our solar system. Picture equipment had to be adjusted because of so little light. The spacecraft encountered Uranus for 113 days, from November 4, 1985 to February 25, 1986. Four new rings were discovered, ten new moons were also discovered, and many pictures were taken. It came within 50,000 miles of the cloud covered planet, then sped off to Neptune. It came within 3,100 miles of the planet in August of 1989, and discovered six more moons. It found the Great Dark Spot, and also found what appeared to be 1/8 of a ring, which completely defied physics. With this Voyager 2’s
Grand Tour of the outer solar system was finished, and it sped out of the solar system into interstellar space. RETURN TO TOP GALILEO
The Galileo spacecraft was launched from the space shuttle on a very strange course that would go to Venus, speed out to the asteroid belt, come around earth, and go out to Jupiter. It was successful, but it had many delays and changes and ended up being rather costly. RETURN TO TOP RECENT MARS MISSIONS In the past decade many new Mars missions have been instigated. The most publicly recognized of these was the 1997 sojourner mission. These missions are usually spaced two years apart because about every two years Mars is closest to earth. RETURN TO TOP PATHFINDER Pathfinder was the mission to deliver the small Sojourner rover to the surface of Mars. Mars Sojourner was the first mobile vehicle on another planet. Sojourner caught the public’s attention on July 4, 1997 when it landed. It
bounced to the surface on a giant inflated cushion, which deflated after it was sure the vehicle had touched down. It was powered by solar panels and was about the size of a microwave. It took 360 degree panoramic pictures of the landscape, and did various tests on rocks and soil. It cost about $266 million, and turned out to be fairly reliable. It found that there was possibly lots of water in some regions, though the atmosphere is thinner and dustier than once thought. RETURN TO TOP SURVEYOR With the watchful camera of the Mars Global Surveyor, launched in November 1996, many new facts are being learned about Mars. The orbiter has
beamed 80,000 images back to earth. The Surveyor, which weighs in at a ton and has a boxy shape, has delivered pictures fifty times clearer than any previous Mars images. New images have been gathered that show what appear to be mudslides, which look to have been recent. The problem is, no flowing water is currently present on Mars. 200 images have been produced of this erosional effect, and scientists have not come up with a non-water solution yet. One idea is that frozen water was
suddenly heated and melted, but, for the size of the mudslides, there is not enough frozen water in those regions. Also, layers have been discovered in canyons, which would promote the idea of ancient lakes, yet the materials in the layers have been moved in ways that do not make sense. Among these layers, what appears to be an ancient ocean has been found. Also, some information on the poles has been gathered. RETURN TO TOP MARS ‘98 The Mars ’98 program is one of the most glaring recent failures of NASA. It consisted of Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter. It was to land two probes on the surface and would have had a spacecraft in orbit. The
first problem was tat JPL did not want to lose the contract so they said they would make it for less money than they thought they could have. They had to use young, inexperienced engineers and managers. The problem with the Climate orbiter was that one programmer used English units instead of metric ones, which were used on the rest of the project. The space craft got way off target and missed Mars completely. The Mars Polar Lander had two probes that were to enter the atmosphere and touch
down safely. The problem was its leg sensors, which thought it was already on the ground because of friction during descent, and the rockets intended to slow the craft down let it plow into the surface. RETURN TO TOP | 
