| .....The Mariner Mars 71
mission was planned to consist of two
spacecraft on complementary missions, but
due to the failure of Mariner 8 to launch
properly, only one spacecraft was
available. Mariner 9 combined mission
objectives of both Mariner 8 (mapping 70
% of the Martian surface) and Mariner 9 (a
study of temporal changes in the Martian
atmosphere and on the Martian surface).
For the survey portion of the mission,
the planetary surface was to be mapped
with the same resolution as planned for
the original mission, although the
resolution of pictures of the polar
regions would be decreased due to the
increased slant range. The variable
features experiments were changed from
studies of six given areas every 5 days
to studies of smaller regions every 17
days. .....The
Mariner 9 spacecraft was built on an
octagonal magnesium frame, 45.7 cm deep
and 138.4 cm across a diagonal.
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