The first mission to Mars

NASA's first mission to Mars used an Atlas-Agena D launcher, which left Cape Canaveral on November 28, 1964, to place a Mariner probe capable of telemetering back photographs of the Martian surface. After an 8-month flight of 135 million miles, the spacecraft encountered Mars only 500 miles off the aiming point 6000 miles from the Martian surface. Attention is given to NASA-JPL's solving of problems arising after Mariner's separation from the Agena upper stage, using two competing investigative teams.