Multimedia Gallery
- Navigation Methods: Radio Navigation
Aircraft equipment interprets time delays from pairs of ground stations.
Engineers testing systems before the launch of Mariner 1 in 1962.
Launch of Mariner 1 on July 22, 1962.
Mariner 10 used the gravity of Venus to propel itself to Mercury.
Mariner 10 on board an Atlas-Centaur Rocket.
Launched in 1973, Mariner 10 used the gravity of Venus to propel it to Mercury with a minimal use of fuel.
Trajectory of Mariner 10. After launch and flyby of Venus, it orbited the Sun to fly by Mercury three times.
A backup Mariner spacecraft hangs in the National Air and Space Museum’s Milestones of Flight gallery.
Beginning in 1961, U.S. manned space missions were controlled from this room, "Mercury Control," at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
This mid-1950s era VOR receiver helped usher in a new era of all-weather navigation capability for light aircraft at moderate cost.