(last ask for now, promise lol)
what were some of the first interplanetary probes like, and what did they do?
(worldbuilding asks do not annoy me in the slightest)
During the ~2300 A.D. Omen apparition, the first interplanetary probes, launched by two nations, were sent to flyby Omen. One of them was a fairly complex craft with a magnetometer, geiger counter, and micrometeoroid detector, but it failed partway through the transfer.
The other was little more than a spinning photopolarimeter (a photo-electric sensor that detects the intensity and polarization of light on a single pixel) and an antenna. As the probe spun, it would scan a line of sky, and as it translated through space, that scanline would scroll down. With sufficient processing it could be turned into a rudimentary image.
Here is a modern processing of the original data.
Communication range and lack of automation ability was an issue and was the primary reason that early exploration of Omen was confined to the Omen Apparitions for the first few such occasions, and why the robotic exploration of other planets also took a while to gain a foothold as well.
But by the next Omen apparition, several nations launched probes that were, at the very least, capable of being steered, rather than relying on strictly ballistic interplanetary trajectories and spin stabilization, and with much more sophisticated instruments.
