As part of the wider Mariner program, in 1969Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 completed the first dual mission to Mars, flying by over the equator and south polar regions and analysing atmosphere and surface with remote sensors as well as recording and relaying hundreds of pictures. By chance, both flew over cratered regions and missed both the giant northern volcanoes and the equatorial grand canyon discovered later. Their approach pictures did, however, photograph about 20% of the planet's surface, and show the dark features long seen from Earth, but no canals. In total 198 photos were taken and transmitted back to earth, adding more detail than an earlier mission, Mariner 4, and both crafts also had instruments to study the atmosphere of Mars.
The twin Mariner crafts made their closest fly-by of Mars at a distance of 2130 miles (3,430 kilometers) on August 5, 1969.
In 1967 Mariner 4 returned to the vicinity of Earth again and engineers decided to use the ageing craft for a series of operational and telemetry tests to improve their knowledge of the technologies that would be needed for future interplanetary spacecraft.
On 7 December the gas supply in the attitude control system was exhausted, and on December 10 and 11 a total of 83 micrometeoroid hits were recorded which caused perturbation of the attitude and degradation of the signal strength.
Mariner 8 was to map 70 % of the Martian surface and Mariner 9 was to study temporal changes in the Martian atmosphere and on the Martian surface.
Mariner 1 and Mariner 2 - As the first spacecraft to fly by another planet, Mariner 2 was built as a backup to Mariner 1, which failed shortly after launch to Venus.
Mariner 5 - The Mariner 5 spacecraft launched to Venus on June 14, 1967 and arrived in the vicinity of the planet in October 1967.
Mariner 6 and 7 - Mariners 6 and 7 were identical teammates in a two-spacecraft mission to Mars.
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