Early in November 1973, the Mariner Venus/Mercury spacecraft was launched from Complex 36B at Cape Kennedy on top of an Atlas /Centaur vehicle. It was the first dual-planet mission, the first spacecraft to explore Mercury, the first close-up television observation of Venus, and the first spacecraft to approach the Sun so closely. Along with two television cameras, six scientific instruments returned interplanetary and planetary data during Mariner's five-month primary mission.

Date Published: 1 March 1974
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 0054, Effective Systems Integration and Optical Design I, (1 March 1974); doi: 10.1117/12.954234

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0054:
Effective Systems Integration and Optical Design I
Gary W. Wilkerson; Robert Poindexter, Editor(s)