Exploration of Mars on November 5, 1964, but the shroud encasing the spacecraft atop its rocket failed to open properly, dooming the mission. Three weeks later, on November 28, 1964, Mariner 4 was launched successfully on a 7½-month voyage to Mars.. Mariner 4 flew past Mars on July 14, 1965, providing the first close-up photographs of another planet. The pictures, gradually played back to Earth from a small tape recorder on the probe, showed impact craters. It provided radically more accurate data about the planet; a surface atmospheric pressure of about 1% of Earth's and daytime temperatures of −100 °C (−148 °F) were
Mars Pathfinder Rohatgi, 18, of Rockville, MD, who suggested Marie Curie. Second runner-up was Adam Sheedy, 15, of Round Rock, TX, who submitted the name of the late astronaut Judith Resnik, who perished in the 1986 "Challenger" space shuttle explosion. Other popular suggestions included Sacajewea and Amelia Earhart. Mars Pathfinder Mars Pathfinder (MESUR Pathfinder) is an American robotic spacecraft that landed a base station with a roving probe on Mars in 1997. It consisted of a lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and a lightweight (10.6 kg/23 lb) wheeled robotic Mars rover named "Sojourner", which became the first rover to operate