22 July 1962: Mariner 1, the first in a series of robotic probes to study the inner planets, lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop an Atlas-Agena rocket; Mariner 1 was based on the same frame as the Ranger probes & intended for a Venus flyby, but the Atlas went off course & was destroyed by range safety, six seconds before staging, lest it threaten Atlantic Ocean shipping lanes.
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