Viking: first operational Mars landers and life-detection experiments
Viking: primeros aterrizadores operativos en Marte y experimentos de vida
- Date
- 20 de julio de 1976 · confidence high
- Place
- Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, United States
- Credited to
- NASA (Langley, JPL) and Martin Marietta
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
The two Viking landers set down in Chryse Planitia and Utopia Planitia and worked for between three and a half and six years. They took the first photographs of the Martian surface, soil studies and three experiments to search for microbial life.
The biological results remain disputed: the Labeled Release experiment gave a positive signal that most attribute to soil chemistry (perchlorate) rather than life. The coordinates are those of the managing centre, not the landing site (Mars).
What it led to
- Martian meteorology and a picture of the soil and atmosphere composition
- the Mars life controversy (Labeled Release experiment)
- Mars Pathfinder and later rovers