posted 12-14-2022 01:10 AM               

It was 60 years ago, on 14 December 1962, that the U.S. spacecraft Mariner 2 completed humanity's first successful interplanetary voyage. After 109 days and traveling 180 million miles, it encountered the planet Venus. The spacecraft, incredibly simple and crude by today's standards, scanned Venus' disk for 35 minutes with microwave and infrared radiometers, and also measured the planet's magnetic field with a magnetometer. It carried no camera because, at that time, NASA was not convinced that the images it might provide were worth the power requirement, additional weight, and added complexities.