When Mariner 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral on May 30, 1971, it entered a race to the Red Planet with two Soviet spacecraft. Mars 3 had launched just two days before Mariner 9, on May 28, and its ...

On November 13, 1971, Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit Mars. At the time, scientists didn't know much about the Red Planet. NASA had several flybys before Mariner 9. Those flybys showed ...

Mariner 9, the first spacecraft to orbit a planet other than Earth, travelled to Mars and returned images of the surface, including this one of a Martian shield volcano. The craft’s wide-angle and ...

Even Mariner 9 was a bit of a crap shoot. Originally, it was supposed to be a two-spacecraft mission along with Mariner 8, but that one was destroyed in a launch failure and NASA had to scramble at ...

You have to feel for Mariner 9. First, the spacecraft loses its twin, Mariner 8, in a launch failure just weeks before Mariner 9 itself was scheduled to blast off toward Mars on May 30, 1971. Not only ...

May 30 marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Mariner 9’s mission to Mars, when the spacecraft became the first to orbit another planet. Entering the gravity field of Mars nearly six months later ...

On May 30, 1971, NASA launched the Mariner 9 spacecraft to Mars with the mission of orbiting the Red Planet to make the first detailed mapping of its surface. On the 50th anniversary of the mission, ...

Early Mars exploration (1960s-1970s) was characterized by a high failure rate, with both the USSR and the USA experiencing numerous mission setbacks due to launch failures, communication issues, and ...

How might Mars look like a hundred years in the future, after we’ve sent dozens of rovers to explore the planet? That’s the idea that Canadian digital media artist Kelly Richardson wanted to explore ...

On this date in history: In 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen, France, at age 19. She had been convicted of wearing men's clothing. In 1783, the Pennsylvania Evening Post became the ...