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Mission record

Mariner 5

Also known as Mariner Venus '67, Venus '67, Mariner5

NASA-Office of Space Science Applications · Launched

Explore trajectory

Completed · Success

A refurbished Mariner 4 backup spacecraft converted from a Mars mission to a Venus mission, whose project objectives were to pass within 2000 km of Venus and provide data on the structure of the planet's atmosphere and its radiation and magnetic field environment. It reached Venus on 19 October 1967 with a closest approach at an altitude of 4094 km, was occulted from Earth for approximately 26 minutes, and NSSDCA records that the mission was termed a success. Contact was lost on 4 December 1967 and temporarily regained on 14 October 1968.

Destinations
Launch vehicle
Atlas-Agena D
Launch site
Cape Canaveral, United States
Countries
United States
Mission types
Flyby

Chronology

Mission timeline

  1. Launch

    Launched from Cape Kennedy on an Atlas-Agena D

    The launch/orbital information page prints 1967-06-14T06:01:00Z, recorded at minute precision because it prints a whole minute with zero seconds; the master catalog gives the same time as 06:01:00 UT. That page names the site as the Eastern Test Range of Cape Kennedy while both pages print Cape Canaveral, United States under Launch Site.

    Earth

  2. Milestone

    Midcourse correction

    NSSDCA reports17.66seconds duration. Original navigation chapter gives23:08:06GMT ignition, while table5 has a conflicting23:03:20.650 comparison epoch; the native records preserve both until resolved.

    Sun

  3. Flyby

    Venus flyby at an altitude of 4094 km

    The launch/orbital information page prints a Venus flyby with a closest approach time of 1967-10-19 17:34:56 and a periapsis of 4094.00 km; the master catalog gives the same time and altitude and adds that Venus was then approximately 79.5 million km from Earth and that the spacecraft was occulted from Earth for approximately 26 minutes.

    Venus

  4. Loss of contact

    Contact lost on 4 December 1967

    The master catalog records that contact was lost on 4 December 1967.

  5. Milestone

    Contact temporarily regained on 14 October 1968

    The master catalog records that contact was temporarily regained on 14 October 1968, and that the spacecraft is now in heliocentric orbit. The NASA history qualifies this as carrier reacquisition without telemetry; it is not a recovered complete operational or navigation record.

  6. Mission end

    Recovery attempts ended

    The NASA history dates the end of recovery attempts toNovember5. October14 recovery concerned a carrier signal without usable telemetry.

    Sun

Mission architecture

Vehicles

  • Mariner 5 · Spacecraft

    Destinations: Venus

Trajectory record

Time-dependent navigation trajectory

Source states place the model at the selected time. Reconstructed flight, estimates, predictions and historical mission plans are identified by interval; gaps remain visible.

J2000 · Sun-centered display · positions interpolated between source states

Coverage: June 14, 1967 to June 14, 1967

Source records and sampling assumptions are retained with the repository data. Model attitude and surface appearance are illustrative.

  • Mariner 5: Physically reconstructed based on publicly available data · bounded 90-minute Mariner 5 state coast; source frame is inferred · June 14, 1967 to June 14, 1967

Provenance

Sources

Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.

Data verified through October 7, 2026