All about the first aircraft, Mariner 9 to orbit around another planet- Mars
The 20th-Century competition between the erstwhile Soviet Union and the U.S. to show greater spaceflight expertise is often labeled as the Space Race.
During the early stages of planetary exploration, it was confirmed for both these superpowers to launch pairs of spacecraft. The thought behind such an implementation was to ensure backup if one of them did not succeed in their objective completely.
In 1965, the U.S. enjoyed their first success by launching Mariner 4 that flew by Mars and captured the first close-up images of the planet. By 1969, NASA had stimulated their accomplishments as Mariners 6 and 7 both flew over Mars with Mariner 7 even capturing an image of Phobos, one of Mars’ two natural satellites.
With the objective of long term observations to better understand Mars, Scientist planned to launch a spacecraft that can orbit Mars so that its various features can be recorded and measured. Keeping this in mind Mariner 8 and 9 were launched. Mariner 8 was launched on 9th May, 1971. However the mission lasted only for six minutes and the spacecraft crashed in the water. Mariner 9 was launched three weeks later than Mariner 8 but in between this time Soviet Union successfully launched its two spacecraft, Mars 2 and Mars 3 and the fight to become the first spacecraft to orbit Mars had literally become a race.
Even though starting little late Mariner 9 first reached Mars and was able to put itself in the orbit of Mars. Mariner 9 performed exceptionally well in comparison to Mars 2 and 3.
NASA announced that Mariner 9 had realized all its goals on February 11, 1972, but the spacecraft carried on sending back useful information. Mariner 9 has mapped 70% of the Martain surface.
Before the last contact on October 27, 1972, Mariner 9 had sent 54 billion bits of scientific data, including over 7,300 photos, some of which were that of Mars’ moons Phobos and Deimos. These images mapped 85% of Mars’ surface at a resolution of 1-2 km. The tremendous success of Mariner 9 prepared the way for the landers that have made their way to Mars since then.
