Launch Success

Liftoff Time (GMT)

06:53:00

Monday August 27, 1962

Watch Replay

Official Livestream

Mission Details

Launch Notes

First spacecraft to reach the vicinity of another planet.

Mariner 2

Wiki

Mariner 2 (Mariner-Venus 1962), an American space probe to Venus, was the first robotic space probe to conduct a successful planetary encounter. The first successful spacecraft in the NASA Mariner program, Mariner 2 was a simplified version of the Block I spacecraft of the Ranger program and an exact copy of Mariner 1. The missions of the Mariner 1 and 2 spacecraft are sometimes known as the Mariner R missions. Original plans called for the probes to be launched on the Atlas-Centaur, but serious developmental problems with that vehicle forced a switch to the much smaller Agena B stage. As such, the design of the Mariner R vehicles was greatly simplified. Far less instrumentation was carried than on the Soviet Venera probes of this period—for example, forgoing a TV camera—as the Atlas-Agena B had only half as much lift capacity as the Soviet 8K78 booster.

Heliocentric Orbit

1 Payload

203 kilograms

Rocket

Retired
Atlas-LV3 Agena-B

Active 1961 to 1965


Payload to Orbit

LEO: 1,725 kg

Stages

2

Launch Site

LC-12

Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida, USA

Fastest Turnaround

32 days 4 hours

Stats

Atlas-Agena


21st

Mission

10th

Mission of 1962

1962


48th

Orbital launch attempt