Viking 40th Anniversary

July 20, 1976, 7 years to the day after the Apollo 11 moon landing, the first successful landing on Mars by NASA’s Viking spacecraft took place. The ambitious Viking missions continue to evoke pride and enthusiasm for future space exploration. NASA’s Viking 1 and 2 missions to Mars, each consisting of an orbiter and a lander, became the first space probes to obtain high resolution images of the Martian surface; characterize the structure and composition of the atmosphere and surface; and conduct on-the-sp