MARS Mariner IV NASA's Vidicon Tube Camera (First MARS close-up photos 1965)
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- Опубликовано: 3 янв 2025
- MARS Photos taken by Mariner IV in 1965 were the first close-up Martian photos ever taken. The Mars photos were taken with a specially designed on-board camera system and digital tape recorder that sent Mars photos back to earth. This video presentation includes rare film and photos of the 1964-1965 Mariner IV mission adventure, including behind the scenes design work and thoughts of the original scientists on the project. Shows how they made the specially designed vidicon based camera and the challenges they faced protecting it on its journey to Mars. Run time: 18 mins. Color and sound.
Portions adapted from the film: “EXPERIMENT: Close up of Mars: The Story of a Scientific Search”
1966: stock footage available from Periscope Film
www.periscopefi...
With Special Thanks to
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
MISSION FACTS Launched by NASA on November 28, 1964 and performed first MARS flyby on July 14, 1965. Mariner 4 contained a specially designed camera with a digital tape recorder which successfully captured 21 digital pictures of the surface of mars. Mariner IV used a vidicon-based television camera tube developed and manufactured by General Electrodynamics Corporation (“GEC”). GEC had developed a special selenium based compound as the target material in the vidicon. This was a very unique design.
A specially built camera system converted photographs into digital information, which was then transmitted to earth to provide the closest views of the planet Mars ever taken. The signals for these images were recorded and stored in digital form on a 300 foot, continuous-loop magnetic tape recorder until the earth station requested transmission after the spacecraft has appeared from behind Mars and was detectable to earth based antennas.
On July 15 Mariner 4 passed within 6117 miles of Mars, spending 25 minutes observing the Mars surface. The Vidicon-based television camera captured 21 full pictures. Each photo covered an area of about 77 square miles. It took about 8 hours to transmit each image back to Earth. Mariner IV operated for a total of 7,375 hours since it was launched. Mariner 4 continues to be regarded as one of NASA’s most successful missions
References:
NASA Technical Report: “Mariner 4 pictures of Mars” By Allen, J. D.; Leighton, R. B.; Murray, B. C.; Sharp, R. P.; Sloan, R. K, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, 1967 (Archive.org)
archive.org/de...
Article: “Television in Space,” by Leslie Solomon. Associate Editor, “Electronics World,” 1965. www.rfcafe.com...
NASA MARS Helicopter photos
mars.nasa.gov/...
NASA Mariner Mars Missions Fact Sheet
mars.nasa.gov/...
This is actually really instructive on how digital images work because it's presented without modern conventions and common knowledge. This could still be relevant as an educational resource!
Andrew, thanks very much.
It pains my heart to see so few views on such an amazing view in the history of aerospace. Amazing list! Keep it coming!
Hi Adrian, thank you for the kind words. This video has been up for about 24 hrs, at this writing. Perhaps more lucky viewers will see it as the weeks progress. It is also just a bit more "technical" than other recent videos, but it is attracting some intelligent viewers! Thanks! ~ Victor, at CHAP
Thank you for this. I’ve always been curious about the tech behind these slow scan vidicon tubes. This is the same tech that brought us pictures from Voyagers I and II. Incredible that they figured out how to digitize images from analog sources nearly 60 years ago.
For an even bigger trip, check out the Lunar Orbiter missions which photographed the surface of the moon. They were like a flying photo developing booth. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Orbiter_1
they did with logic gates...
Thank you, we appreciate the good feedback! ~ Victor, CHAP
Awesome. The limits to human creativity are still to be achieved.
Really a great view into the people and equipment used in this program- thanks for posting
First112, thank you for the great feedback. ~ VK, CHAP
The humour sprinkled throughout the narration and the engineering pr0n (as well as the educational value, but that has been pointed out already) make this video more awesome than it needed to be...
This is an excellent video summing up Mariner IV's camera subsystem however I'd like to know if there are going to videos about the various other subsystems of Mariner IV posted?
Hi Nicholas, no immediate plans for videos about the Mariner subsystems, but it is a good possible topic for the future. Thanks very much! ~
@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject What about Mariner 4's central computer and sequencer subsystem electronics?
I like seeing the technical side of the project in how the equipment was developed in the lab.
It was a wonderful Documentary
Thanks ✨✨✨
Hi Ajinkya, thank you. Glad you enjoyed the Mariner IV documentary. Looks like MARS will be in the news again for some time! Hope you will explore our other vintage videos and computer history material. Thanks again! ~ C. Hunter, at CHAP
I was a space geek nine year old back in 1965 and I was absolutely disappointed and heartbroken when I saw the first aerial, grainy black and white pictures of the Martian surface in our local newspaper revealing very Moon-like craters and features--until July 20, 1976 when Viking 1 landed on Mars and released first time pictures of the surface revealing a very Earth-like desert plain with red sand, and rocks and distant hills with a pink sky above. From that moment on, my childhood fantasies of Mars had returned.
Hi @2painful2watch, that is a great story. I can almost feel your excitement when seeing the color Mars photos! ~
How about venera?
The host, Don Herbert, was best known to television audiences as "Mr. Wizard."
Yes, you are quite right. ~
Nice, the beginnings of digital imaging which became digital photography.
It was a technological breakthroigh getting the camera to perform so perfectly.
Yes, also, we found it fascinating too. Most people probably have not heard of vidicon tubes, at least by that name.
@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject That's true, I never thought of that. :)
"Alright I'll plug mine into yours and you plug yours into somebody else's and let's see if it works?" Raunchy comedy for those days
I love the pipe smoking in the clean room!
But they only use "clean" tobacco....
From '63 to '73 cape canaveral was called cape kennedy. So mariner iv launched from cape kennedy.
Another Mariner 4 subsystem that could be looked at is the probe's central computer and sequencer subsystem electronics and how it worked.
It must have been very challenging for engineers back then to meet the weight and power requirements, given the technology of the day
LOL! 8 bits per second! That must have been a *blazing* speed for back then! HAHA!
This documentary was awesome. I always wanted to know how the camera 📷 works on these spacecrafts. I’ll admit all those number sequences made me even more confused lol
Hi @KennyG_420, thank you very much for your feedback. Glad you liked it. It does provide some unique bits of history of this camera tech. ~ VK, CHAP
The good old d-sub connectors never failed. But I didn't know they officially qualified for a Mars probe.
Did they really use the foam postal packaging?
MajorDV camcorder
These guys literally invented the digital camera and it took nearly 30 years before the first realistic consumer models hit the market
Sloane looks all business there.