Here’s how it works. Mariner 4 was the first spacecraft to fly by Mars, and the first to return close-up images of the Red Planet. Its blurry views of craters and bare ground led some scientists ...

But it is Mariner 4, the first flyby mission of Mars, which set the stage for a lot of the science being done on and around Mars today, and the first mission where NASA wisely took a “pics or it ...

Mars 2, had launched on May 19. Three U.S. missions, Mariner 4, Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 had flown past Mars in 1965 and 1969, but no spacecraft had yet orbited another planet. Like its Soviet ...

But it is Mariner 4, the first flyby mission of Mars, which set the stage for a lot of the science being done on and around Mars today, and the first mission where NASA wisely took a “pics or it ...

Mariner 4’s historic encounter with Mars was just the beginning of a series of missions that changed the way we see our planetary neighbors. While the actual photo was also released, the hand ...

In the early days of planetary exploration, the agency's strategy was to launch pairs of spacecraft to Mars so that there would be a backup if one of the spacecraft failed. Mariner 4 was the first ...