Spacecraft lands on Mars

Press, 21 July 1976, Page 6

Spacecraft lands on Mars

PA-Reuter

Pasadena, California

The United States successfully landed its Viking 1 lander on the surface of Mars today and prepared to search for evidence of life.

It wa> seven years ago to the day that man first landed on the Moon, radioing Wk to Earth: “That's one small step for man. one giant leap for mankind.” Radio signals from the probe, the first American spacecraft to land on Mars, showed it had survived the landing after a trip of 213 million miles that began 11 months ago.

The landing stage of the inmanned Viking spacecraft broke away from the main section orbiting Mars on schedule before starting its descent to the planet’s surface, Agence France Presse reported.

Mission control at Pasa-j dena said the separation oc-1 ■ curred at 8.51a.m. Greenwich mean time. The' lander was touched down at 12.12 p.m. (12.12 a.m. today, . New Zealand time).

The separation of the 1300 lb lander from the 50001 b orbiting section went off as planned. Small explosive charges blew apart the three bolts holding the two spacecraft together, and a system of powerful springs then pushed them apart. Mission Control did not want the lander to use its engines until it was so distant from the orbiting section that there was no danger of damage to the purple solar panels needed to generate the spacecraft’s elecI tricity. The ensines burned for 24 minutes to get the lander in the right position for its descent. Six minutes after the lander entered the atmosphere of Mars, a parachute was onened. braking its fall. I Its orotective shield then dropped off and crashed to |the planet’s surface. One minute after opening, the parachute was discarded, and the braking motors turned on.

At an altitude of 4600 ft above the plains of Chryse, the space probe was travelling at a speed of 207 k.p.h.. a velocity which dropped to 8.8 k.p.h. before touchdown. The braking motors switched off when one of the probe’s three extended aluminium feet touched the planet’s surface. The lander will take black and white pictures of its footpad and then of the surrounding landscape of Chrvse Planitia. the so-called Gold Plain of Mars, one of the towering volcanic peaks, deep chasms, craters, and sand dunes, and the meandering channels through which floods of water once must have coursed. The photographs will be transmitted from the lander to the orbiting Viking 1 mother ship, tape-recorded, and then relayed to Earth. The first pictures began [taking form on television i screens at the control centre lin Pasadena about an hour [after the landing.