More Spacecraft To Be Sent To Mars

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31247, 20 December 1966, Page 8

More Spacecraft To Be Sent To Mars

Work is well in hand on further spacecraft to investigate the planet Mars. Two more Mariners will be sent to Mars in 1969. The 8001 b spacecraft will be launched on Atlas-Centaur rockets from Cape Kennedy. When they fly by the planet eight months later they will study the Martian atmosphere, take some more photographs of the planet’s surface features and gather as much information as possible to aid the design of landing capsules.

Already extensive tests are under-way on parachute devices for possible use in landing instrumented capsules on the surface of Mars. The test devices are carried by balloon or rocket to high altitudes over the New Mexico desert. The parachutes are then opened and their behaviour in the thin air high above the earth is similar to that expected in the rarefied Martian atmosphere. Two out of three tests have so far been successful.

The results of these tests, together with the data from the next Mariner spacecraft, will settle the design of the

future Voyager series of Mars-landing vehicles. These will travel to Mars during the next decade to sample the soil, sniff the air and snap close-ups of the surface. The first Voyager lander is set for 1975, but a Voyager to orbit Mars will be sent earlier, in 1973.