REUTERS — National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) celebrated a historical milestone on Wednesday (July 20): the 40th anniversary of the first U.S. spacecraft to land on Mars.
On July 20, 1976, NASA successfully reached the Martian surface with their Viking Lander 1. The Viking project – comprised of two separate spacecraft – together took more than 65,000 images of the planet and collected overwhelming amounts of data.
The primary goal of the Viking mission was to search for evidence of life on Mars. While none was found, the mission did give scientists analysis of chemical activities in the Martian soil, atmospheric measurements, meteorology studies, and a detailed map of the red planet’s surface.
The two Viking crafts were designed to work for 90 days, but ended up functioning for 6 and half years.
