Mariner 10 Begins a Journey to Venus and Mercury
NASA launched Mariner 10 on November 3, 1973.
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The Event
NASA launched Mariner 10 on November 3, 1973. The spacecraft would use a flyby of Venus to reshape its path toward Mercury.
The Wider Story
Gravity assistance made the mission's two-planet journey possible. The Venus encounter and the first Mercury flyby occurred in 1974, after the launch anniversary commemorated here.
Putting the Event in Perspective
Mariner 10 revealed previously unseen terrain on Mercury and made important magnetic-field observations.
Reading the Historical Record
Launch imagery should show an Atlas-Centaur and the appropriate spacecraft, without moving those later discoveries back to November 1973.
About the Historical Recreation
The accompanying visual is an illustrative reconstruction: an Atlas-Centaur launch in daylight dissolving to an illustrative Mariner 10 spacecraft in deep space. It is not authentic archival footage, an eyewitness record or additional evidence for the event.
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