Last week the Mariner II spacecraft was 7,651,352 miles away from the earth and 28.9 million miles this side of Venus, its destination. As Mariner barreled away from the earth at 7,724 miles an ...
On November 13, 1971, Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit Mars. At the time, scientists didn't know much about the Red Planet. NASA had several flybys before Mariner 9. Those flybys ...