On this day in space! Nov. 13, 1971: NASA's Mariner 9 becomes 1st spacecraft to orbit Mars, revealing close looks at the Martian surface
(Image credit: NASA) Here's why it mattered Mariner 9 cemented its place in space history when it entered into orbit around Mars, the first human-built spacecraft ever to do so.
Key points
- The NASA spacecraft actually beat the Soviet Union's own Mars 2 spacecraft to the Red Planet, even though Mars 2 "had an 11-day head start," NASA said in a mission description.
- (Image credit: NASA/JPL) Mariner 9 carried four primary instruments to study Mars, including a camera system for imaging, an ultraviolet spectrometer, an infrared spectrometer and an infrared radiometer.
(Mars 2 would go on to be the first human-built craft to impact the surface of Mars when it crashed into the Red Planet.) But it was the science from Mariner 9 that transformed Mars from a mysterious Red Planet into a full world for humans to explore.
Additional details
- The Boldest Mars Missions in History The Mariner 9 mission first saw the peak of Olympus Mons on Mars in the midst of a global dust storm in 1971.
- In all, Mariner 9 took 7,329 photos of the surface of Mars, mapping the planet down to a resolution of between 1/2-1 mile (1-2 km).
- Those flybys showed that Mars had a cratered surface, so some scientists thought that Mars looked just like the moon.
- Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.
- But the spacecraft remains one of the most famous Mars voyagers of all time.
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