  mariner 4 (together with mariner 3 known as marinerâmars 1964) was the fourth in a series of spacecraft intended for planetary exploration in a flyby mode. it was designed to conduct closeup scientific observations of mars and to transmit these observations to earth. launched on november 28, 1964,  mariner 4 performed the first successful flyby of the planet mars, returning the first pictures of the martian surface. it captured the first images of another planet ever returned from deep space; their depiction of a cratered, seemingly dead world largely changed the view of the scientific community on life on mars.   other mission objectives were to perform field and particle measurements in interplanetary space in the vicinity of mars and to 
Derelict_satellites_in_heliocentric_orbit Derelict_space_probes Mariner_program Missions_to_Mars Spacecraft_launched_by_Atlas-Agena_rockets Spacecraft_launched_in_1964