Technical Troubles Delay Venus Shot

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29903, 17 August 1962, Page 11

Technical Troubles Delay Venus Shot

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

CAPE CANAVERAL (Florida), Aug. 15.

An outbreiik of technical problems today forced scientists to delay “for several days’’ plans for firing a complex electronic space probe toward the planet Venus. The launching of the 4471 b Mariner II bad been scheduled for next Monday.

Informed sources said problems cropped up in the 10-storey-high Atlas-Agena booster rocket, causing the delay, United Press International reported.

No new launching date was set. but Mariner II was not expected to be fired into space until late next week or early the following week The exact nature of the problems was not disclosed The planet Venus is the next prize in the space race, and this time, the United States expects to use Mariner II to give the Soviet Union some competition To the victor may go the honour of having solved one of the deepest mysteries of the upiverse: can life—at least, as we know it on earth —exist on the cloudshrouded surface of Venus? At present, Venus is making a comparatively close approach to earth. This socalled ‘‘ideal period" for launching a probe to the planet will end some time in late September. After that, it will be another 19 months —seme time in 1964—before Venus comes within range again. United States scientists expect the Soviet Union to take at least one shot at Venus before the current launching "window” closes. The United States already has missed on one of its two

Venus shots set for this year, because of a missing hyphen, which perhaps ranks as the most costly single mistake of the space age. The hyphen was left out of a guidance equation that Space Technology Laboratories prepared for the launching of the first Venus probe. Mariner I. As a result, the Atlas-Agena rocket went off course on July 22 and had to be destroyed 290 •econds after it was launched. It was an 18,500.000-dollar failure. A similar amount of money is being spent for the next shot.

If all goes as planned. Mariner II will span the gap between the two planets in about four months and pass within 10.000 miles of the Venusian surface —far doser than any made-made object has ever come to another body in the solar system, except for earth's natural moon.

The instruments, using extremely high-frequeney radio signals, will pierce the heavy clouds to determine the conditions beneath. The conditions that would support earth-type life Include a moderate temperature on the surface and sufficient water vapour and oxygen in the atmosphere. But these facts have been concealed from astronomers by thick layers of elouds.