Jet Propulsion Laboratory (U.S.) Mariner '67 Spacecraft Design Team.

The Mariner Venus Spacecraft Design Book describes the Mariner Venus 1967 project from 1966 through 1967. When launched June 14, 1967, abroad an Atlas-Agena SLV-3, Mariner Venus '67 became Mariner 5. The spacecraft was fully attitude stabilized, using the Sun and Canopus as references. A central computer and sequencer subsystem supplied timing sequences and computing services for other spacecraft subsystems.

The spacecraft passed 4,000 km from Venus on October 19, 1967. The spacecraft instruments measured both interplanetary and Venusian magnetic fields, charged particles, and plasmas, as well as the radio refractivity and UV emissions of the Venusian atmosphere. Another objective of the mission was to obtain additional engineering experience in converting and operating a spacecraft designed for flight to Mars into one flown to Venus and to obtain information on the interplanetary environment during a period of increasing solar activity.

The planetary contamination constraints were not established; the spacecraft was not sterilized. Therefore, the probability of impact was lowered by not using nominal trajectories. Improvement was made in the Launch Vehicle System rather than spacecraft design.

The purpose of the Mariner Venus Spacecraft Design Book was to provide the design criteria of the spacecraft equipped with a communications system capable of transmitting spacecraft data to the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility. The spacecraft data was divided into engineering data and scientific data. Engineering data and most scientific data was transmitted in real time. The scientific data taken near planet encounter was stored in an on-board magnetic tape recorder. This stored data was transmitted back to the DSIF sometime after planet encounter.

The Mariner Venus spacecraft had two transmission rates and four data modes available to allow flexibility in the spacecraft data telemetry system. This flexibility was highly desirable because of the long-range communication distance and the several operational modes that took place during the mission.

From the description of Mariner Venus '67 Spacecraft Design Book, 1966-1967. (Jet Propulsion Laboratory Library and Archives). WorldCat record id: 733100216