September 1975
From The Space Library
NASA had invited nearly 5000 scientists worldwide to propose experiments for a possible 6-yr mission to Uranus, beginning with a November 1979 launch. The mission, which could include a swing by Neptune, was being studied for inclusion in NASA's FY 1977 budget request. A mission to Uranus and Neptune would mean that every planet in the solar system except Pluto would have been probed by a U.S. spacecraft by 1988. The spacecraft itself would be adapted directly from the Mariner probe now under development at Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a planned 1977 mission to Saturn; like Mariner-Saturn, the Uranus mission would use the gravity of Jupiter to hurl the spacecraft on toward the more remote planet. If the spacecraft remained healthy after it investigated Uranus, it would use the gravity of that planet to fly on to Neptune, more than 1.6 billion km deeper into space. (GSFC Goddard News, Sept 75, 2; UPI, NYT, 4 Sept 75,20)
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