Administration

1978 · réf. 72350 — Washington DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Scientific and Technical Information Office 1978. Presumed First Edition First printing. Hardcover. good. 11" x 14" vii 1 160 pages profusely illus. some in color tables Cover has some fading. Some pages has slight corner creasing. No dust jacket present. 3D viewer in pocket at rear boards have some edge wear. Oversized item requires more shipping charges if sent overseas. The Viking program consisted of a pair of American space probes sent to Mars Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface. The orbiters also served as communication relays for the landers. The Viking program grew from NASA's earlier Voyager Mars program. Viking 1 entered Mars orbit on June 19 1976 with Viking 2 following suit on August 7. After orbiting Mars for more than a month and returning images used for landing site selection the orbiters and landers detached; the landers then soft-landed. The Viking 1 lander touched down on the surface of Mars on July 20 1976 and was joined by the Viking 2 lander on September 3. The orbiters continued imaging and performing other scientific operations from orbit while the landers deployed instruments on the surface. Pictures from the Viking 1 and Viking 2 Landers as well as an account of the decade leading up to the Mars pictures by Tim Mutch leader of the Viking Lander Imaging Team. The Viking landers were the first completely successful spacecrafts to land on Mars. Before Viking arrived at Mars landing sites were chosen for both Viking landers. On July 20 1976 Viking lander 1 arrived at its chosen site in the western part of Chryse Planitia. On August 7 1976 Viking lander 2 touched down on Utopia Planitia. Each of the Viking landers carried a series of science packages which included a weather station a seismometer a chemical analysis package two cameras a soil composition package and a biological experiment package. Within minutes of lander 1's touch down the first picture was taken in case something happened to the spacecraft. This picture showed what looked like a sandy dusty surface with rocks up to 10 cm in diameter. The two cameras on each lander were mounted on opposite sides of the space craft. This allowed stereoscopic images to be taken which could be used to calculate distances from the lander to the features in the pictures. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Scientific and Technical Information Office hardcover