Born on July 14
Mariner 4 Reaches Mars
Our first close look at Mars.
Next: July 14, 2027
Where it comes from
This Story marks the anniversary of 14 July 1965, when NASA's Mariner 4 became the first spacecraft to fly past Mars. Launched on 28 November 1964, it travelled for 228 days and passed about 9,846 kilometres above the planet on the evening of 14 July, US time.
How it's celebrated
There is no formal observance. NASA keeps the Mariner 4 pictures online, including a famous hand-coloured version of the first one, and every Mars orbiter, lander and rover since has followed the path it opened.
Did you know
Too eager to wait for computers, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory stapled strips of printed numbers to a wall and coloured them in with pastels from an art shop, making the first picture of Mars by hand.
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