A mannequin of the Mariner-C spacecraft on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center for a June 1964 Conference on New Technology. Mariner-C and Mariner-D had been an identical spacecraft designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to flyby Mars and {photograph} the Martian floor. Mariner-C was launched on November 4, 1964, however the payload shroud didn’t jettison correctly and the spacecraft’s battery energy didn’t perform. The mission ended unsuccessfully two days later. Mariner-D was launched as designed on November 28, 1964 and have become the primary profitable mission to Mars. It was the primary time a planet was photographed from area. Mariner-D’s 21 images revealed an inhospitable and barren panorama. The two Mariner spacecraft had been launched by Atlas-Agena-D rockets. Lewis had taken over administration of the Agena Program in October 1962. There had been 5 failures and two partial failures within the 17 Agena launches earlier than being taken over by NASA Lewis. Lewis, nonetheless, oversaw 28 profitable Agena missions between 1962 and 1968, together with a number of Rangers and the Mariner Venus ’67.
