Mariner 4 Credit: NASA
According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the Institute of Technology, one of the greatest early successes of the American space program was the Mariner 4 mission that journeyed to Mars.
The spacecraft made its closest approach to the Red Planet on July 15, 1965 and took the first photographs of another planet from space.
In addition to providing key information about how to safely deliver future missions to the Martian surface, the spacecraft far outlasted its planned eight-month mission. It lasted about three years in solar orbit, continuing long-term studies of the solar wind and making coordinated measurements with the Mariner 5 spacecraft.