Mariner 9 became the first otherworldly orbiter 53 years ago

Nov. 13. () –

NASA’s Mariner 9 probe arrived at Mars on November 13, 1971, becoming the first spacecraft to successfully orbit another planet. It had been launched on May 30 of that year.

Scientifically, it constituted a continuation of the observations of Mars acquired by the Mariner 6 and 7 probes, showing clear photographs of the Martian surface hidden at the beginning of the mission by large sand storms.

The Mariner Mars 71 project It was a mission made up of two ships that were to orbit Mars on complementary missions, but due to the failure of Mariner 8 to launch, it could only be done with a probe.

However, the Mariner 9 mission was a resounding success since it was achieved the first global map of Marsincluding the first detailed views of the volcanoes, Valle Marineris, the polar caps, and the Phobos and Deimos satellites.

It also provided information on global dust storms, the variable gravitational field by area and evidence of erosive activity by wind, Wikipedia reports.