Spacecraft Near Mars

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32052, 29 July 1969, Page 13

Spacecraft Near Mars

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) PASADENA (California), July 28. The United States was aiming for a milestone in space this week which in some respects would surpass even man’s landing on the moon, United Press International reported. Two little Mariner spacecraft will fly to within 2000 miles of the planet Marsone on Thursday and the other next Tuesday. After the flypasts they will go into eternal orbit round the sun. But the information they will flash back may give scientists the answer to whether the red planet has the environment to support some form of life comparable to that on Earth.

Mariner 6, the first of the two 8501 b, windmill-shaped craft, has been on the voyage from launching at Cape Kennedy since February 24 and will have travelled 241 million miles in 156 days when it reaches “near encounter” with Mars, on Thursday.

Mariner 7 was launched on March 27 and will have flown 197 million miles in 130 days when it approaches 2000 miles from Mars on Tuesday. A spokesman at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena said: “If it had not been for Apollo 11, Mariner would be the number one scientific event of 1969.” The factor that makes Mari-

ner 6 and 7 so significant is the meshing of photographic, temperature, and atmospheric findings that may find an answer to man’s dream of discovering living things on another planet. The world’s television public will get another incredible show from space. The two spacecraft are programmed to transmit pictures back to earth.