The final phases of the Viking mission to Mars |
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| Authors: | Conway W Snyder Nancy Evans |
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| Institution: | Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California 91103 USA |
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| Abstract: | Of the four spacecraft that the Viking Project put into operation at Mars in the summer of 1976, one continues to acquire data periodically. The missions of the two orbiters were terminated by the depletion of their attitude-control gas: Orbiter 2 in July 1978 and Orbiter 1 in August 1980. Lander 2 was shut down in April 1980 because of degradation of its batteries. Lander 1 is programmed to continue acquiring a modest number of imaging, meteorology, and ranging data periodically until December 1994. During its final year Orbiter 1 continued to produce excellent data from its full complement of instruments—two cameras, two infrared instruments (thermal mapper and water vapor detector), and the radio subsystem. The major emphasis was on photography, with 10,000 images being acquired. These included two very large swaths of high-resolution contiguous coverage of the Martian surface and the completion of the moderate-resolution mapping of nearly the entire surface, as well as miscellaneous other observations. The majority of these images has not been processed and examined, but the others have revealed many previously unobserved features and have greatly enhanced the base for a geological understanding of the planet. The history of Viking mission operations is brought up to date. |
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