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Mariner 2 (Mariner-Venus 1962), an American space probe to Venus, was the first robotic space probe to report successfully from a planetary encounter. The first successful spacecraft in the NASA Mariner program , it was a simplified version of the Block I spacecraft of the Ranger program and an exact copy of Mariner 1 .
Mariner 2 (designated Mariner R-2) was launched on August 27, 1962, sending it on a 3½-month flight to Venus. The mission was a success, and Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to have flown by another planet. On the way it measured for the first time the solar wind, a constant stream of charged particles flowing outward from the Sun.
Missions to Venus constitute part of the exploration of Venus. The Soviet Union, followed by the United States, have soft landed probes on the surface. Venera 7 was the first lander overall and first for the Soviet Union, touching down on 15 December 1970. Pioneer Venus 2 contained the first spacecraft to land from the United States, the Day ...
The first successful flyby Venus probe was the American Mariner 2 spacecraft, which flew past Venus in 1962, coming within 35,000 km. A modified Ranger Moon probe, it established that Venus has practically no intrinsic magnetic field and measured the temperature of the planet's atmosphere to be approximately 500 °C (773 K ; 932 °F ).
Contact with Venera 1 was lost 7 days after launch. It was the first spacecraft to fly by Venus, or indeed any planet. [76] Mariner 2: Venus 27 August 1962 14 December 1962 110 days (3 months, 18 days) Mariner 2 flew by Venus at a minimum distance of 34,773 km. It was the first spacecraft to return data from Venus. [77] Mars 1: Mars 1 November 1962
A planetary flyby is the act of sending a space probe past a planet or a dwarf planet close enough to record scientific data. [1] This is a subset of the overall concept of a flyby in spaceflight. The first flyby of another planet with a functioning spacecraft took place on December 14, 1962, when Mariner 2 zoomed by the planet Venus. [2]
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Starting in May 1960, under Parks' direction, JPL/NASA conducted the world's first spacecraft mission to another planet, the Mariner 2 mission to Venus in 1962; the Ranger 7, 8 and 9 missions in 1964 and 1965, which produced the first close-up photos of the Moon; and the Mariner 4 mission to Mars in 1965.