This week marks 60 years since Mariner 2 flew by Venus, making the probe the first successful interplanetary mission. The flyby spacecraft flew within 21,500 miles of the Morning and Evening Star, ...

Human-built spacecraft have been exploring other planets for a full 60 years. On Dec. 14, 1962, a NASA spacecraft called Mariner 2 flew past Venus in the first-ever planetary flyby. The maneuver gave ...

On Sept. 4, 1962, NASA's Mariner 2 spacecraft performed the first-ever rocket maneuver in deep space as it did a quick mid-course correction on its way to Venus. It had launched just eight days ...

On Aug. 27, 1962, NASA launched Mariner 2, the world's first successful interplanetary spacecraft. Mariner 2 flew by Venus after a 3½-month voyage through space. The mission launched just one month ...

Once imagined as humid and hot forested wetlands, shrouded in clouds, Venus was the setting for countless sci-fi pulp imaginings. Edgar Rice Burroughs, a prolific pulp sci-fi writer, wrote of a hot ...

PASADENA, Calif. — Fifty years ago on a mid-December day, NASA’s Mariner 2 spacecraft sailed close to the shrouded planet Venus, marking the first time any spacecraft had ever successfully made a ...