Voyager program (Mars)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Voyager program was a planned series of unmanned NASA probes to Mars. The missions were planned between 1966 and 1968 and scheduled for launch in 1974–75.The probes were conceived as precursors for a manned Mars landing in the 1980s.

Originally NASA had proposed a direct lander using a variant of the Apollo Command Module launched on a Saturn IB with a Centaur upper stage. With the discovery by Mariner 4 (1965) that Mars had only a tenuous atmosphere the mission was changed to have both an orbiter and lander. This required the use of a Saturn V to launch two probes at once. The orbiter would have been a modified Mariner probe identical to that employed for Mariner 8 and Mariner 9, while the landers would have been Surveyor moon probes modified with the use of aeroshells and a combination parachute/retrorocket landing systems.

Funding for the program was cut in 1968 and the mission cancelled in 1971, mainly on the grounds that launching both probes on a single rocket was both risky and expensive.

Much of the planning and development effort of the Voyager program formed the basis of the cheaper and simpler (yet still very expensive and ambitious), Viking program, which were launched atop separate Titan III-E/Centaur rockets.

The same name was later used by the Voyager 1 and 2 outer planet probes; see Voyager program.

edit Failed & Cancelled missions to the Planet Mars
Failed:	Marsnik program | Sputnik 22 | Mars 1 | Sputnik 24 | Mariner 3 | Zond 2 | Mars 1969A | Mars 1969B | Mariner 8 | Cosmos 419 | Mars 6 | Mars 7 | Phobos 1 | Mars Observer | Mars 96 | Nozomi | Mars Climate Orbiter | Mars Polar Lander | Deep Space 2 | Beagle 2
Cancelled:	Voyager | Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander | NetLander | Mars Telecommunications Orbiter