Request Mariner-Mars Flyby/Lander, 1969

[Graham2001]

In 1964, before the flight of Mariner III/IV, NASA looked at making the 1969 Mariners, VI/VII, flyby/lander missions to be used as precursors to the advanced Mars landers of the Voyager program.

The launch vehicle was to be the Atlas Centaur.

Unlike some studies on the NTRS all the reports for this mission proposal are available, and I thought it might make a suitable payload for either MJRs Atlas Series or the Velcro rockets.

See:


Conceptual Design Studies of an Advanced Mariner Spacecraft. Vol. I, Summary

Conceptual Design Studies of an Advanced Mariner Spacecraft. Vol. II, Systems Analysis

Conceptual Design Studies of an Advanced Mariner Spacecraft. Vol. III, Lander Design

Conceptual Design Studies of an Advanced Mariner Spacecraft. Vol. IV, Flyby Bus Design

Conceptual Design Studies of an Advanced Mariner Spacecraft. Vol. V, Development Plan & Cost

 

[4throck]

Interesting suggestion. Right now I'm busy with other meshes and projects, otherwise I'll never get them finished.
Anyway, it's something I could model in the future and I agree that it could be simple to setup on the Atlas.

 

[Graham2001]

Interesting suggestion. Right now I'm busy with other meshes and projects, otherwise I'll never get them finished.
Anyway, it's something I could model in the future and I agree that it could be simple to setup on the Atlas.

Good luck if you chose to do so, just remember the documents pre-date the Mariner IV flyby and you might need to upsize the parachute on the lander.

 

[Lunar_Lander]

Very nice idea! It's sad that NASA did not decide to fly the Voyagers and settled for Viking instead (which had been a great mission, no doubt on that!).

I read in a little German book about the "Future World", which had a chapter on space flight, that the Voyagers were planned to go to either Mars and Venus and were to be followed by even more "Advanced Voyagers". Do you have some more material on that? Maybe even about the Venus branch of the project?

 

[Graham2001]

Mariner-Mars 71 Flyby/Lander

Having discovered 1966 plans to have Mariner VIII/IX as flyby/landers I thought I'd add the information to the end of the existing thread on the proposed Mariner-Mars 69 flyby/landers rather than create a new one as the design appears to be an update designed to take into accounts the findings of Mariner IV.

Launch vehicle is the same as the Mariner-Mars 69 mission, namely an Atlas/Centaur.

See:

1. Mars '71 technical study

2. Mars '71 technical study: Addendum

 

[Graham2001]

Mariner Mars 1969 Orbiter

My final addition to this thread is a pair of reports looking into the possibility of making Mariner VI/VII the first Mars orbiters, with or without an attached lander.

See:

1. Mariner mars 1969 orbiter technical feasibility study

2. Mariner mars 1969 orbiter study final report

 

[Graham2001]

I had not planned to post to this thread again, but I've discovered an interesting new payload dating from around 1965 (& using pre-Mariner IV values for the Martian Atmosphere).

A capsule designed to place a high resolution camera on the Martian surface, take one photograph and transmit it back to Earth.

The study only covers the capsule/camera system and does not go into spacecraft details, so a degree of freelancing will be required, especially into the re-entry system.

See:

Study Of A High Resolution Facsimile System Experiment On The Surface Of The Planet Mars