Viking 1's Titan III-E rocket roared to life Aug. 20, 1975, as the spacecraft set forth on its nearly 500-million-mile journey to Mars. Fully fueled, the orbiter-lander duo weighed about 7,800 pounds.

On July 20, 1976, the Viking 1 Lander became the first spacecraft to safely touch down on the surface of Mars. brought Mars to life and set the stage for years of Martian exploration.

Ultimately, The Viking team would take a mock-up spacecraft to White Sands National Monument and use a balloon to lift it to an altitude of 100,000 feet.

LITTLETON, Colo. (CBS4) - Lockheed Martin is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its Viking lander. Viking 1 was the first spacecraft to land on Mars, and it has influenced almost every mission to ...

The Viking spacecraft arrived at Mars in the summer of 1976 and passed through superior conjunction on November 25, as Mars passed directly behind the Sun as seen from Earth. This provided researchers ...

(Phys.org)—In 1976, two Viking landers became the first US spacecraft from Earth to touch down on Mars. They took the first high-resolution images of the planet, surveyed the planet's ...

Space. OTD In Space – August 7: Viking 1 Orbiter Shuts Down. Posted: August 14, 2024 | Last updated: July 5, 2025. On Aug. 7, 1980, NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft ended its epic and historic mission ...

When NASA's Viking 1 lander made history as the first spacecraft to touch down on Mars on July 20, 1976, it sent back images of a landscape no one was expecting.

My father was a rocket engineer, and when I was 14, he took me along to the launch of the Viking spacecraft to Mars. NASA held talks where families could meet the scientists, ...