Mariner 1
Mariner 1 was NASA/JPL's first attempt to send a spacecraft past Venus. Its microwave and infrared radiometers were intended to investigate the planet, while a magnetometer and particle, plasma and dust detectors would study interplanetary space; it carried no camera. The launch vehicle veered off course on July 22, 1962 and was destroyed for safety, preventing the Venus encounter.
Follow this mission
Alerts are unavailable because this mission is no longer active.
Identity
- Aliases
- Mariner 1Mariner R-1Mariner 1 Venus Probe
- Name
- Mariner 1
- Status
- failed
Details
- Astronauts
- -
- Description
- Mariner 1 was NASA/JPL's first attempt to send a spacecraft past Venus. Its microwave and infrared radiometers were intended to investigate the planet, while a magnetometer and particle, plasma and dust detectors would study interplanetary space; it carried no camera. The launch vehicle veered off course on July 22, 1962 and was destroyed for safety, preventing the Venus encounter.
- Destination
- No Venus flyby achieved; guidance failure caused loss of control and range-safety destruction at T+294.5 seconds
- End Date
- 1962-07-22
- Launch Site
- Outcome
- Mariner 1 did not achieve its planned Venus flyby. Shortly after launch on July 22, 1962, the Atlas rocket veered off course and the range safety officer destroyed the vehicle at T+294.5 seconds. NASA attributed the failure to a guidance-antenna problem combined with a software error in the ground guidance equation that omitted an overbar from the radius symbol; Mariner 2 later achieved the first successful Venus encounter.
- Programs
- Start Date
- 1962-07-22
- Vehicle Families
Links
Assets & Meta
- Creation Time
- August 14, 2026 at 17:30:18 UTC
- Updated Time
- October 17, 2026 at 14:01:57 UTC
- Image
- Download
Other
- Affiliations
- -
- Space Stations
- -
- Vehicles